Campfire Story
by Thescarredman
Summary: There's something about staring into a fire in the dark that makes folks want to tell secrets.
1. Zoe and River: Girlfriends

"Don't worry," River said, drawing her knees up to her chin as she stared into the fire. "Daddy will come for us soon and take us home."

"I know." Zoë glanced at the darkened shuttle a hundred paces away. It was fully functional, with plenty of fuel to break atmo and make orbit, but there was no one to meet it. _Serenity_ was gone. "Don't know how he'd take to bein called 'Daddy,' though."

"He is what he does." The moonbrained child cocked her head like a dog. "But you're no Mommy."

Zoë scoffed and looked up at the night sky. The little moon they were on turned fast enough to see the stars moving; _that_ was something the terraformers had never found a way to fix. She wondered how many of the little points of light were really worlds, and whether one of them was the Alliance cruiser whose sudden appearance had chased their contraband-laden ship out of orbit and into the Black.

River swept a hand up and pointed to a spot in the sky. "Earth-that-Was." Her finger moved slightly, tracking the movement of the starfield.

"Thought the home star was too faint to see."

River dropped her hand. "Just because you can't see a thing, doesn't mean it isn't there." She returned her attention to the fire. "Quiet. No one around but us, yours the only voice."

Zoë felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rise. She knew the girl wasn't talking about her real voice. It was creepifying to know her every thought was knocking at the door to River's conscious mind. Especially knowing hers were the only ones presently requesting entry.

"Easy to filter," the girl said. "Hardly have to think about it."

_Only, how did she know what was on my mind if she wasn't reading it?_

"You're staring at me." River's eyes never strayed from the fire. "What else would you be thinking of?"

Zoë decided to let it go. She shivered. Short the night might be, but the temperature was dropping fast in the thin dry air, and being left behind made her feel even colder. Getting separated from her squad in strange territory was a familiar experience, but never a good one. They'd come down in the afternoon, intending to stay long enough to pick up a few items at a town nearby and be gone before local sunset. _Plans change_. She cast a longing glance at the shuttle, but without giving any real thought to powering it up for heat. The little craft's powerplant signature would stand out to searching sensors above, but their fire would be only one of a thousand dotting the night face of the tiny moon.

It _was _quiet, she realized. The ship was grounded in a large open space bordered on one side by a wood. Experience taught her that such transitions in habitat teemed with wildlife. A place like this was bound to have critters that came out at night, she thought. But she couldn't hear any birdcalls or other animal sounds. Maybe a larger predator was about, keeping them under cover?

Zoë picked up a few more pieces of wood from the pile they'd gathered and set them on the fire, watching the flames rise. She was just about to go search the shuttle for a blanket when River, still staring into the firelight, stuck her hand into the freshened blaze. Flames licked her fingers. Zoë shoved her away, hard enough to put the girl on her back. "River!"

Still on her back, the girl held her hand up, examining it with detached interest. The skin was red from wrist to fingertips and beginning to show tiny blisters.

Zoë hurried to the shuttle for the small medkit and a blanket. When she returned, she saw that River hadn't moved, was still staring up at her hand and turning it this way and that like it was something she'd picked up off the ground. Zoë applied burn salve to the injury and sprayed it with sealant, muttering nonstop in Chinese. "Why'd you do such a crazy thing?"

"Experiment. Something else they cut out of me."

"Don't touch anything till that dries. What are you talking about? They cut your nerves so you don't feel pain?"

"No." River examined the repair. The redness was fading already, and the blistering had halted. Zoë figured she'd pushed the girl clear just in time. "It still hurts. I just don't mind."

Impulsively, Zoë sat cross-legged beside the girl and drew the blanket across both their shoulders, sharing cover and body heat. She pulled her close. "Why would they do that? You were supposed to be valuable to them. Why make you a danger to yourself?"

"No danger." River stared into the fire again, her voice dreamy; the salve had an anesthetic that made plenty of folk relaxed and sleepy – and sometimes talkative. "Kept her far from hurt, a little white laboratory mouse with all its immunities bred out. Safe environment. Soft surfaces, rounded edges. Eat with a spoon instead of chopsticks. Nothing sharp in reach while she's got a hand free, oh no. If she has to go somewhere else, strap her to a gurney or a wheelchair or even a hand truck and wheel her around like furniture. They'd spin in terror now to see what she's done, what she's touched."

"I swear, girl. I can't decide whether you know too much, or whether you don't know a damned thing. Or which would be more dangerous."

River's eyes were still glued to the fire. "I know what your husband is like in bed."

She froze. "Say _what_?"

"I know how he makes you feel when he touches you. The feel of his hands, and the places they linger on you. His favorite games and positions. What the strange noises are that Jayne hears through the wall." She stared down into her lap. "I can't help it, really can't. When you're together, you mindwave stronger than anyone aboard. You even drown out the engine. All I have is borrowed filters now, and before that, none at all. Leakage is inevitable. Sometimes it's weak, just ghost fingers on my skin…" She touched a spot on her belly below her navel "… and a strange feeling here, that makes me want to tighten my pelvic floor and rock my hips. Other times, it's like being in the bed between you." She laid her head on Zoë's shoulder. "I know about his freckles and how you make a game of counting them with your lips. I know how your hair feels in his fingers, and how it delights him that you don't shave like Core girls do." She turned her head, still on Zoë's shoulder, to look up at her. "I can describe lovemaking well enough to make Inara blush, but I've never had a man of my own. I swear I can't decide either."

Zoë swallowed. "Who else…"

"No one." "River smiled brightly. "Girlfriends keep secrets. I told you you're no Mommy."

"I'm no girlfriend either. Leastways not since I was your age."

The girl's arm circled her waist. "Not many chances now. You've got to be hard for the captain, even when he's not around. Kaylee likes you, but she can't find her way to you. All you share with her is war stories. And Inara big-sisters her girlfriends. That doesn't fit you at all. There are some things you can't protect him from, you know."

She blinked. "What?"

"You just have to let him hurt himself on her. Healing hurts sometimes, too." River snuggled into her, resting a knee over hers. "Tell me about your first husband, and I'll tell you about my beau on Osiris."

"First… River, Wash is my first."

"Fibber. I've seen him. A boy no older than me. He put a ring on your finger."

"Ah." She shifted. "Shiia, he put a ring on my finger, and a choker around my neck, too. He spoke words in front of a preacher, standing at my side. They gave him a piece of paper afterward said we were man and wife. But I never spoke a vow, and I didn't stand there with him cause I wanted him. Far as I was concerned, that jewelry was a set of shackles, and that paper was a bill of sale."

River nodded. "I see it now. Arranged marriage. How?"

She smiled. "Settle in. This'll take a while." After a few moments, she began. "I was ship-born, I think you know. _Fair Chance_, an ugly old Fairfield about three times the size of _Serenity_. Forty-odd people, one of them me. Still wasn't big enough for a girl reaching woman-tall and brimming with hormones. Three boys near my age aboard. Two were related, and the last… well, he was swai enough, but we'd known each other since we were crawling. I just couldn't think of him like that. It's a common problem on family ships, and there's a common solution. The only one, really."

"You shipped out."

"Shiia. I'd have preferred another ship, but Dad and Ma wanted to see me settled among relatives, even ones we didn't know so well. She located a cousin on Sutter with a daughter about my age, and put out feelers. This cousin offered to take me in till I was legal age, about six years, but she wanted to make a trade. Sounded odd to me, and maybe to my folks too, but some of the older crewmen on _Fair Chance _were starting to look me over, and I was looking back, and they were running out of time, they thought. Ma asked her cousin about 'single young men,' and I reckon that's where the misunderstandings started.

"Sutter was all right, if you liked prairie. We passed through town on the way to 'Aunt' Bella and 'Uncle' Jim's place, and the looks I got from strange folk made me tingle. Sutter's one of those worlds that's almost all white, and I guess the local boys thought I looked exotic. Seemed like the place had possibilities. Should have paid attention to how un-heartbroke my cousin Adele was to leave it."

"And how drably the women dressed. It was a Collins settlement. Wasn't it?"

She nodded. "Ayuh. A woman couldn't even drive a wagon there. The only acceptable occupation for one was housewife. Widows lived with their sons or in a kind of barracks run by the church. Every female was the property of some man in all but name. A proper, decent woman was expected to keep quiet in public around men if she wasn't spoken to, stay at home if she wasn't sent out. And all marriages were arranged. Cousin Adele had got caught kissing a boy, and maybe a little more, so now no decent family would arrange for her. She was set to die an old maid or a whore till Dad and Ma waved 'Aunt' Bella with their little request. She boarded _Fair Chance_, settled into my bunk and my life, and never breathed a word about the fix I was in, the jien huo. And 'Uncle' Jim was getting offers for me before the ship broke orbit, likely.

"Here's how it was supposed to work: every decent girl was expected to get a husband, an engagement really, sometime between twelve and sixteen. The boy or his family would make an offer of a bride price, to be paid before the ceremony. The girl's father would decide which offer to accept if there was more than one; she didn't have to go to the highest bidder. She'd stay with her folks till she turned eighteen, then leave home and join her husband for a life of wedded bliss and manual labor. Stop gigglin. I'll allow they were probably happy enough, most of em, cause that's how they were raised. And I'll bet most of the girls got some say in the offer their dads accepted.

"I didn't. 'Uncle' Jim sifted through half a dozen offers my first six months there – before I even knew there were any, mind you – and settled on a boy from a prosperous clan, folks who could be expected to spend plenty of coin in my uncle's dry goods store once he was in the family, so to speak. Kinda the way you do it?"

"No. The girl always has a choice. Father gave Winston permission to call because he was earnest and well-heeled and a member of the Twelve Families, but if he'd asked me first, I'd have told him not to bother."

"Ugly? Fat?"

"No. Swai, really. But he was an imbecile. And, besides, he smelled funny."

"Smelled funny. What does Jayne smell like, pray?"

The girl's nostrils flared. "Sweat. Gun oil. Cigars. Whiskey. Wonderful." The corners of her mouth turned up. "And just the faintest hint of the sea when he's thinking lusty about me."

"Hm. It's what I get for asking, I reckon."

"What did you do when they told you?"

"Well, after six months dirtside, I knew how things worked, so I knew I didn't have any say once the deal was done. I wrote home, plenty, but "Uncle' Jim was the only one ever went to the post office. What happened to my letters and any replies, only he knew. Meanwhile, I don't doubt 'Aunt' Bella was writing them glowing reports about how well I was fittin in." She stopped. "Don't get me wrong. They treated me all right, by everything they knew. They were trying to raise their cousin's heathen kid up proper. If my new life chafed, well, that just proved how bad I needed it."

"The boy. Was he handsome?"

"Aaron? You said you saw him."

"He didn't look very appealing at your marriage ceremony. But emotions color perceptions. It was a bad time for you."

"He was all right, I suppose. Presentable. Four years older, and impatient, if you catch my meaning. I didn't have anything against him. I just didn't want to spend my life as his housekeeper and cook and broodmare. But sure as the turning of worlds, I was going to spend my eighteenth birthday and every night after in his bed if I didn't get off that rock."

A small noise like claws scratching on rock caught her ear. Her hand went to the butt of her mare's leg. She strained to hear, but no other sounds were forthcoming. "River? You hear anything?"

"Not with my ears. I catch something, very vague and faint. Someone about to eat a meal, I think. Not close by."

_First, I fretted at not hearing animals. Now I'm jumpy when I do. _She relaxed somewhat. "You hear anything, either way, sing out."

The girl nodded, her eyes shadowed in the firelight when she raised her head. "What happened then?"

"What happened?" Zoë took her hand off her weapon and drew the blanket tighter around them. "Nothing much. For six solid years. I went to school – a different one for girls, teaching important stuff like cooking and sewing clothes and such, no point filling our heads with useless truck like math or science or literature. I helped my aunt keep house and mind her brood of little ones, and watched a couple of them grow up and get married off too. I sat in the parlor with my folks when Aaron came to call, waiting for him to speak to me. He talked to 'Uncle' Jim mostly, but he snuck a lot of glances my way. I knew he was counting the days in his head. So was I, but not the same way. By the time I was a month shy of my eighteenth, I was feelin like a rat in a sack waiting to be tossed off a bridge.

"My uncle sent me to his store one day to fetch some stuff home. He did that once in a while when he was busy, and I guess I was supposed to take it as a sign of trust. When I got there, I saw people in strange clothes walkin the aisles, and my heart near skipped a beat, because that meant a ship had landed. The homesickness just rose up and near shut off my air.

"One of those spacers was a boy my own age, about. I never saw anything so beautiful in my life. Not that he was swai, though maybe he was; I can't be sure now. But he was something I wanted bad. Getting caught talking to him would ruin my reputation, but getting disowned by Aaron's family didn't sound so bad, and I wasn't sure of the difference between a Collins wife and a whore anyway. I caught his eye and drifted out the back door, and he followed a minute later.

"We only talked. It was all I really wanted from him, and he knew better than to lay a finger on me. I told him who I was and how I'd got there, and we traded ship stories. His was _Hollister_, a bulk transport out of Alluquere. I told him about _Fair Chance_ and her registry, and he got an idea.

"Alluquere was building up its armed forces, and was taking anyone fit with citizenship. I'd never been there, but being born on an Alluquere-registered ship made me a citizen, and eligible to join up at eighteen. Once I was in the Armed Forces, I'd be beyond the reach of Sutter law. I just had to get there. He offered to sneak me aboard and hide me in his room till _Hollister_ broke orbit and was well on its way."

River grinned at her, looking very Kaylee. "'Hide you in his room.' You fell for that?"

"I jumped on it. I left that ring and choker in the dust at the base of _Hollister's_ ramp. And yes, I spent my eighteenth birthday in his bed."

"Did you ever hear from them again?"

"Not my aunt and uncle; they were probably sorry they'd ever known me. They must've been years livin down the scandal, especially after Adele. Dad and Ma were mortified when they found out what they'd dropped me into, but I couldn't blame them. They were just tryin to do right by me. So were my aunt and uncle, really. Aaron actually came to Alluquere to fetch me back, can you believe it? He must have liked me better than I ever guessed. They turned him away at the gate of the training camp, actually dragged him off. Could almost feel sorry for him. Must have been a bitter disappointment, after waiting for me so long."

"And now I know why you hate cooking."

A stone rattled somewhere on the far side of the campfire, accompanied by a scuffing sound. A gravelly voice said, "Well, now, what we got here?" Two men appeared out of the dark.

Zoë let the blanket fall as she stood, with River half a second behind. She gripped the stock of her mare's leg, ready to draw. River said, "Two more behind us," just as a ham-sized hand wrapped around Zoë's bicep, preventing her from drawing or running.

She pulled a little, testing the man's grip and heft: she guessed her captor must be nearly twice her size, maybe half a head taller and solid. "That would have been good to know ten seconds sooner."

"Sorry. Signal amplitude is directly proportional to the complexity of the sender's thought. Their thoughts are very simple."

"Well, ain't she got a fancy little mouth?" The man who'd spoken before, one of the two on the other side of the fire. They were grinning now, exposing a great many missing teeth. "What's a pair of sweet young things like you doin out here so late at night? Lookin for something?" His tone suggested that what they'd been looking for had just found them.

_Frontier worlds_, she thought. _Don't you just love em_. "Waiting for someone. Several someones, actually. Be here anytime."

The leader glanced at the shuttle, a barely-visible gleam in the firelight. "Anytime, or not any time soon? Nice little ship." He turned back to them, still smiling, though not so widely as before. "Pretty, and rich too, looks like. I think I'm in love."

The man next to him said, "What's your favorite flavor, chocolate or vanilla?"

The leader's smile was gone now, his eyes flat. "Both."

The other man shrugged. "Fine by me. I get first crack at second choice."

River said, as if she and Zoë were still alone, "I don't want my first to be a smelly rapist."

All four men laughed. The man behind River caressed the top of her shoulder, bunching up the material of her dress. "Baobei, I bet you'll like me just fine, you relax a little and get used to it."

Still ignoring the others, the girl turned her head to Zoë. "I think we should hurt them until they go away."

"Good plan. I'm a little fuzzy on the details."

River nodded towards the two men across the fire, who were regarding them with arms folded, grinning again. "Those two are mine. I don't like the way that one looks at you."

The girl suddenly leaped into the fire with one leg drawn back and kicked. Flaming branches and embers flew into the men's faces, and they flung their arms up, bellowing.

Zoë bent forward and brought her free elbow back and up into her captor's face. He grunted in pain and fell back, and her gun was out. She put a slug into the man who'd been standing behind River, and then an arm was thrown across her torso, trapping her gun arm and pulling her roughly back against the other man. She raised a boot to stamp down on his ankle just as she felt cold metal against her throat. "Drop it!"

"No, don't." River stepped around the scattered remains of the fire. Her two men were on the ground, one groaning, one quiet. Her hair was smoldering, and her dress burning outright. She patted out the glowing spots with one hand; the other held a smoking branch. "You love that gun. You don't want to get it all dirty." She carefully set the branch back in the ashes.

Zoë felt the blade nick her skin. The man's voice was ragged. "How'd you do that? What the hell are you?"

River stopped her advance and regarded him with a thoughtful expression. "Hm. Puzzling question, objectively speaking. Zoology. Philosophy. Metaphysics." Her face blanked for a second, then she blinked and came back into focus. "Clever diversion. You should have made use of it."

"You're a witch. A gorram witch."

River smiled happily. "But I'm _her_ witch. Do you know what a posthole digger is?" She dropped her chin and stared at him from under her brows. "Sheathe the knife. Walk away. Or I'll be the last thing you ever see."

The man pulled Zoë tighter. She still had an arm free, but couldn't find a use for it. She got her fingertips between the man's wrist and her shoulder in case his grip loosened enough to safely push the blade away. The knife trembled against her throat, widening the cut. "You're crazy."

"Does that make me less dangerous? I can kill you with my brain." She took a step closer. "Make blood pump out your eyes and ears till there's none left, or fill your chest and drown your heart. You'll die screaming." Softly, she repeated, "Walk away. Now."

The knife and arm dropped, and the pressure against Zoë's back disappeared so suddenly she almost stumbled. Thudding footfalls faded into the dark.

River looked at her with sudden alarm. "You're hurt."

She touched her throat: a cut, a thumb wide and not deep. "_I'm_ hurt?" River's legs and hand were brick-red, with a frightening whitish sheen. If the girl didn't get treatment quick, she'd be scarred for life at the very least. "Let's get you to the shuttle and dress those proper."

River looked at the ground around. "What about them?"

Zoë flicked an eye at the one she'd shot. "He ain't going nowhere."

"My two might. What if they wake up?"

Zoë settled the question with two rounds. Then she holstered the weapon and draped the girl's arm over her shoulder to take some weight off her legs. "Does it hurt? I mean, would it?"

River looked carefully at her feet as she walked. She seemed very tired. "I'd be howling like a monkey."

"Good. That means you're not too bad off to fix."

A few minutes later, River sat at the edge of the pilot's seat, the charred dress bunched around her waist and burn salve coating her legs from ankles to mid-thigh. Zoë sprayed the roasted limbs with sealant and set to work on the girl's hand with the very last of the salve. "Your brother's gonna throw a fit, he sees the condition I brought you back in."

"You'll handle him." River downed half a bottle of water. "Thirsty."

"That's a good sign, too." She sprayed sealant on the burned hand. "You'll probly shed like a snake, but the skin under'll be smooth and pretty as a baby's behind, I'm guessin." She set the sealant container down carefully, not looking at her patient. "River, what you said to that last man…"

"No, I can't. But he thought I could." She took another big draft, emptying the liter bottle. "Not at first. But he was holding you, and he could feel you waiting for me to do it. You convinced him, and he ran."

*

_Serenity_ arrived with the dawn, putting down quickly a short distance from the silent shuttle. Its ramp dropped as swiftly as a landing craft's, and four armed men spilled out: Mal, Jayne, Book – and Simon, who pelted across the scrubgrass between ships with a pistol in one hand and his red medical bag in the other.

They passed the carnage at the campfire they'd spotted on the way down, and Jayne grabbed Simon's shirt collar to stop him from rushing headlong to the little craft. The big merc put a finger to his lips and then a palm flat towards the ground. _Be quiet. Settle down._ He surveyed the ground. "Nobody walked back to the shuttle but the women. River's limpin, got an arm over Zoë's shoulder, looks like."

Simon lunged forward, only to be brought up short again by Jayne's hand on his collar.

"Doc," Mal said, "Just cause they weren't followed in don't mean they're alone. We go in smart so we don't get em killed, dong ma?"

The boy nodded jerkily. "What do we do?"

"Well, for starters, you hang back and let Jayne and me go through the door. There's only room for two, and we got the most practice at this sort of thing. We'll call soon as it's secure. Shepherd, I want you to stay back here with him. You're our best distance shooter, I'm guessin, and you can cover the door better from here. Sides, you're less likely to do somethin you'll have to pray over later if you're not in the thick of it."

"Your concern for my spiritual well-being is touching, Captain." But Book's eyes flicked towards the boy as a sign of understanding; his unofficial job would be to keep the doc out of harm's way.

"Too much talk," Jayne growled. "Somebody's in there, we're givin em way too much time to get ready for us."

Mal nodded acknowledgement, and the two of them made a cautious approach to the shuttle, easing up to stand close against the hull on either side of the open hatch. Jayne produced a small mirror and used it to look around the shuttle's interior. He nodded tensely at Mal, indicating a direction inside with his chin. The captain slid in cautiously, senses straining.

The main compartment was empty, except for his missing crewfolk, who were occupying a portion of the deck – dead, unconscious, or just asleep, he couldn't be sure. But Zoë was sitting with her back to the wall, with River lying against her, head on her shoulder and circled in her arms; it looked as though they'd been at ease when they went down. The odor of burnt things clung to them.

Jayne poked his head and pistol in. Mal cocked his head towards the curtain closing off the pilot compartment, but the big merc was already moving that way. "Clear."

"Get Doc and the Shepherd in here." He looked at Zoë and River, lying so still, and hoped they wouldn't need the services of either. He knelt close, and let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding as he saw his mate's chest rise and fall, moving River's head with it. "Zoë."

Her lids rose heavily. "Sir? You all right?"

"Am _I _all right?" He smiled and laid a hand on her other shoulder. "You just rest easy. You had a busy night."

"Cold takes it out of you, I reckon." Her eyelids dropped.

He examined the little crazy girl and his brow creased in worry. Her dress ended at mid-thigh, the hem a ring of char, exposing a scarifying amount of burned skin. Both hands were burned as well, one worse than the other. It seemed likely poor River had been knocked into the campfire during Zoë's scuffle with their attackers. But the raw-looking skin gleamed with a coating of bandage sealant, so he reckoned Zoë had seen to her before they'd passed out.

Simon appeared at the doorway and took in the scene. Mal straightened. "They're shiny, I think. River's dress caught fire, but Zoë treated her from the medkit."

"Then I can't do any more for them until they're in the infirmary." But he holstered his weapon and knelt beside them. He touched his fingers to wrists and necks and examined the sleeping pair carefully. "She didn't dress her own wound."

"Huh?"

The boy indicated a clotted nick at the woman's throat. "It'll keep until we're back. Let them rest."

River stirred and settled closer into Zoë's neck, and the sleeping mate snugged her grip.

Jayne returned with the Shepherd. "Our mate's a hellcat," he said proudly. "Three deaders, three slugs. Tracks of a fourth hightailin into the woods. Two of em was already down when she plugged em, coup de gras."

"Koo de what? What kinda Chinese is that?"

The big merc scoffed. "How old were ya when you dropped outta school?"

"Got a feelin you didn't learn that in school. Sides, the world's my classroom, Jayne. Learn somethin new every day." He looked down at the sleeping pair. "Don't know how Wash is gonna take this."

Jayne looked at them as well, eyes widening. "You mean…"

"Zoë's been pesterin him about a child for a while now. Think if he stalls her much longer, she might adopt." He headed for the pilot compartment.

The engines whined softly as the shuttle lifted for the hop to _Serenity_. The three men in the back compartment stood in attendance around the sleeping females, a sort of honor guard.

Without opening her eyes, Zoë murmured into River's ear, "Set em straight?"

"If you do, my brother will pad my room and lock me in it," River whispered back. "Make something up. Just one more war story."

Zoë tilted her head slightly to rest her cheek on the girl's head. "Just one more secret."

19


	2. Simon and Kaylee: Sharing Everything

"Comfortable?" Simon rubbed his hands briskly at the fire before resuming his seat on the driftwood log.

Kaylee slid over into the circle of his arm. "Perfect. The fire's nice, even though it's plenty warm out tonight." She closed her eyes. "Never heard waves falling on a beach before. Kind of like listening to some big animal sleeping."

"Surf, you mean?"

"Yeah. Nothing but little lakes back home. I've traveled the 'Verse, but it don't seem like I've seen much of it."

Simon twined his fingers in the hair at the side of her head. "Back on Osiris, there are recreational lakes that glow at night. You swim in them, and your wake shimmers with rainbow lights."

"That sounds so beautiful." She settled closer. "You must miss home something awful."

"Parts of it I miss every day. But not all." He brushed his fingertips against her neck, feather-light, delighting in her shiver. It was all he dared take from her. "And… some of the things that are… most important to me… aren't there." _Be careful_, he told himself. _Say the right thing. Do the right thing. Above all, don't get carried away. Don't dishonor her again._

"Like River?" She looked up at him, and he was sure it wasn't just the fire's reflection he saw dancing in her eyes.

"Very like River," he said, "but very much not." Despite all self-admonishments, he found himself leaning toward her.

"G'rammit!" Jayne's voice nearby cut the tenuous connection between them. The big mercenary continued, his voice too low to make out the words, and they saw him a bit farther down the beach, barely visible by the fire's light. He was talking to the captain, the two of them face-to-face and no more than a meter apart, and Simon knew they were quarreling. Jayne was waving his arms, getting hotter by the second, as Mal seemed to get more cool and still. To Simon, the two men looked seconds away from blows, or even drawing weapons. Jayne, in fact, dropped his hand to the handle of his knife, and Captain Reynolds his pistol.

Just as Simon got his feet under him, preparing to intervene, Jayne abruptly turned and stalked off into the darkness, headed down the beach. Mal watched after him a moment, then turned and headed back towards the grounded ship, somewhere over the sand dunes lining the narrow beach. Simon let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Then he noticed the state of the girl beside him.

Kaylee was staring after the two men, her hands crossed over her mouth. "Hate it when they get like that. Makes me feel like… they're capable of anything, ya know? Like maybe I don't know em at all, and…"

"They're gone," he said, drawing her to him with both arms. "Separate ways. Just an argument." He stroked her hair until she dropped her hands, then wiped the tears off her cheeks. "Baobei, what is it?"

Her face smoothed out, became cheery again. "Look at the stars. I love the way they look out the ship's windows when we're in the Black. Even better through a faceplate when I'm outside, so you can see em everywhere you look. But when you're in atmo, and the only way to see em is to look up, and they're all soft and twinkly, it makes em seem closer, somehow. Friendlier."

He felt torn. Kaylee obviously wanted to change the subject, but he felt reluctant to let it go. He summoned all the subtlety at his command, which he'd been told wasn't much, and got an idea. "Kaylee, do you know why my family courts the way it does?"

"You mean, startin when you're kids, and never doin it before your wedding night? I spose it's so you make sure you picked the right one."

"Partly. It's more like… making your pick the right one. You spend so much time together, by the time you marry, you can't imagine being with anyone else. And the courtship is almost entirely public, so you really do marry each other's families." Carefully he added, "Consummation is sometimes called 'final knowledge', because you learn everything else about each other before sex can cloud your judgment. Our style of betrothal makes divorce among the Twelve Families nonexistent."

"Everything. That's an awful lot."

"I don't suppose it ever really happens that way. But it's what we aim for." _Tell me_, he willed her silently.

She slipped out of his arms, stood, and stared into the fire. "And what if 'everything' turns out to be too much?"

He swallowed, thinking of secrets he'd prefer safely hidden forever. But a man couldn't keep secrets from his fiancée and still be a man. "That can't be."

She continued to stand staring into the flames for half a minute before she spoke again. "I told you about my family."

"I remember. Your father's a farmer on New Home. He and your brothers own a machine repair shop." He remembered the story well; Kaylee talked often about her family. Twenty years before, Mr. Frye had bought a tractor repair business at auction, mostly as a way to keep his own equipment running on the cheap, and discovered an innate talent for the work. He'd expanded as his sons – and, later, his daughter - grew and took over the business. They'd gotten a reputation as a shop that could fix anything, and people had begun to bring all manner of broken machinery to them. Frye's Repair now handled everything from agricultural equipment to hard-burn drives, and served customers from all over New Home. "Your mother manages the house and family. You're second youngest of four, the only girl. Oldest brother Matt, older brother Rosh, and little brother William, still in school when you took ship."

She nodded. "That's what I tell most everybody. Sometimes I start to believe it myself, then I feel all ashamed for… pushin her outta my mind like that." She paused. "I'm one of four, true enough, but I'm youngest, and not the only girl. And Will ain't really my brother.

"Willamina was born between Matt and Rosh, four years older than me. She was such a beauty, I know she coulda been a Companion if Ma and Pa had decided to send her off. At fourteen, she had boys in two counties payin her visits." She smiled at the memory, but then her face turned blank and still. Simon felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir.

"She useta walk me to school every day, even after she was moved to second school, and come for me after. She didn't have to. We just loved each other, you know? And we talked and had plenty a laughs together. Fought, too, but we always made up. She was the best." Another pause. "Happened when I was ten, and her fourteen. We were taking our usual shortcut through the woods on the way to school. That's where he took us, a big dirty man with burning eyes, or so I remember. Mina tried to scream, but he smacked her to the ground at the first squeak. I thought he killed her till she groaned." She shivered. "I shoulda run for help, I know that now. But I couldn't leave her.

"He gagged my mouth with a knotted rag. Then he wound a rope around my waist and tied my wrists to it at the small of my back. I remember standin there watchin him pick Mina off the ground like a stick a firewood and truss her up the same way while she was still gatherin her wits, and I started to shake so much I almost fell down. I knew this stranger hadn't just happened on us in the woods. There was too much planning in what he'd done. It made me ready to wet myself wonderin about the rest of his plans. After he had her done up, he roped us together at the neck with about six feet between, tied a lead to my neck, and led us off like a brace a ponies.

"We walked all day and night, through woods and hills and across streams, all of it strange country. We didn't stop for rest or food or even to tinkle. If one of us slowed or even stumbled, he jerked on my lead fit to take my head off. We were pretty much cried out when we got to his shack."

The driftwood burned up quickly, and the fire had lowered, bringing the night closer. Simon wanted to bring Kaylee closer as well, but he was afraid of how she'd react if he tightened his grip. Instead, he laid his free hand gently over hers where it rested on her thigh.

"We were with him for over two months, they tell. I couldn't have said. The days were all alike, and countin didn't seem to make any sense. We had more important things on our minds.

"There was no getting away. First thing he did once he got us there, before he even untied us, was take our shoes. I guess there wasn't another soul around for miles, and the shack was at the bottom of this steep-sided bowl, sort of, a half-mile-wide crater lined with rocks. I think it was an old quarry. The rocks were almost like black glass and sharp as knives, from little shards to chunks as big as your head. There was only one way in, and I near broke an ankle on the way down that first night. The ground around would cut bare feet to ribbons before you got fifty yards. It was better than a fence. And the cairns out back left us no doubt what'd happen if we got caught tryin to run.

"Most days, he wasn't there. He'd leave us and come back with firewood or jugs of water or something he'd shot. Coupla times he was gone all night. And a coupla times he'd go out in the morning and be back by noon. He went out, you never knew when he'd be back. You just knew he always would.

"We cleaned house while he was gone. We spent most all our time on it, even though it was just a little three-room shack and none too clean when we first got there. He could always find something we missed, even if we hadn't. Dependin on his mood, that could cost you anything from a meal to a whippin from a leather belt he had hangin by the door, a whippin that'd leave you stiff for days after. We only had the clothes we come in, but he expected us to be neat and presentable all the time, though he was none too tidy himself, so we washed those near every day too, and spent our days in our underthings or our skin while they dried. We cooked when he got there, and ate what he didn't. Then he might set us some chores to do while he watched. Come sundown, he'd head for the bedroom in the back. And he'd take Mina with him." She was silent for a few moments. Simon's skin crinkled from a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the night air. "Don't know which was worse – the first week, when I could hear her cryin and beggin him to stop every night, or all the nights after when she didn't make a sound."

"That…" He swallowed and licked his lips. "That must have been very hard. Especially not understanding what was happening to her."

Kaylee gave him a shriveling look. "I was a ten-year-old farm girl. A _course_ I knew what was goin on." Her eyes returned to her lap. "And if I hadn't, I'd have learned right quick. He taught me things to do for him when he wanted a switch, things with my mouth and hands. But he used Mina for everything else. Maybe he thought I was too young, but I think he just liked her better. Truth, I think sometimes he took me along that day just to give him another hold on her.

"He threatened to kill us every day. He had this big knife just like Jayne's. He wore a belt sheath for it, but it didn't rest there much when he was with us. He carried it all the time, like his hand didn't feel right without it. He'd get worked up about something, he'd start to wave it around. Havin the point under my chin or the edge of the blade at my throat felt as natural as clothes after awhile. We just tried to stay small and quiet and not look him in the eye. It was enough, barely."

She fell silent. River wandered into sight from up the beach, the direction opposite the one Jayne had taken. She was walking barefoot along the wet sand lapped by the waves, bent and staring at the smooth surface; Kaylee, still gazing at her lap, didn't notice as his sister passed by. River darted a hand, dug, came up with a large crustacean of some sort, and set it down. She watched, smiling, as it burrowed back into the sand. Then her smile disappeared, and she raised her eyes to meet his over the smoke and flame. She mouthed 'Dummy,' looked meaningfully at Kaylee, and wrapped arms around herself. Simon circled Kaylee gently in his arms, and his sister smiled again and traveled on, disappearing into the darkness. He thought of calling a warning to her that she was wandering into the path of an angry mercenary, but the girl in his arms shivered, drawing his attention away.

The little redhead pulled in a breath and let it out. "We talked a lot when he was gone. We talked about getting rescued, at first, but that sorta petered out. We talked about the man who took us, and how his mind worked, tryin to figure some way to mellow him out, or at least avoid the worst from him. We talked about the weather, and how the days were getting shorter and colder. About chores and housework, home and family. How long our clothes were gonna last before they were washed to rags. Bout the only things we never talked about was what went on in that bedroom at night, and how much longer he'd keep us before he got bored and put us under a new rockpile and went lookin for fresh.

"One morning after he was gone, we were putting our clothes on the line. Oh, I didn't say. Those rocks didn't come right up to the shack's walls. The ground was cleared for maybe ten yards all around, so we could get to the clothesline and the outhouse and build a cookfire outside if he was there to watch. He didn't worry about us being seen, what with the shack being in the bottom of a bowl surrounded by trees in the middle of nowhere. Anyways, we were just hanging up our things and lingerin in the fresh air before we went inside to work. And we heard a whistle. Not the kind somebody makes when they're callin you; the kind a boy lets out when he sees a girl he likes.

"We jerked up like deer at the snap of a twig, but we couldn't tell where the sound had come from because of the echoes. But we looked hard, turning around all frantic, until we heard laughing, and we finally spotted this strange man, just visible at the top of the cliff, standing there lookin down on us with his hands on his hips like he was having the time of his life. Spose he thought we'd shriek and bolt for the door, bein we only had on these thin little shifts that didn't cover our bottoms. Instead, Mina started waving her arms and jumping up and down, squalling like she'd found a weasel in the henhouse, and after a couple seconds I joined in. We kept it up till he understood we needed help, and he rounded the lip of the pit to the entrance and started down. Then we shut up, except for crying, and watched him all the way down the cliffside and right up to that clothesline, because we were scared if we turned our heads away he might just disappear.

"He was youngish, twenty or so, and his name was Will. He'd come with his pa and some other men on a prospecting trip. That's all he had a chance to tell before we gave him our story. Mina begged him to get the others, but he wouldn't hear of leavin us. 'Climb on my back,' he said to her. 'I'll carry you to the lip and come back for your sister.'

"And that's what he did. Mina prolly didn't weigh a hundred pounds then, but a quarter mile over those rocks and the thirty-yard climb to the rim couldna been easy. I watched the whole thing, and I saw him stumble more than once. But he was awful determined, and he made it. They reached the top, and I was just about to yell a cheer when I saw _him_ step out of the woods not ten feet away, and it froze in my throat.

"Will didn't have a chance. The man already had that knife out, and stabbed that poor boy hard enough to lift him off his feet, even with my sister still on his back. Mina tumbled off him, and I bet he was dead before he hit the ground.

"The man was on her before she made her feet, and gave her a clout. I could hear his voice but not his words. He sounded like a wild animal mauling something. With her wrist tight in his fist, he pulled the knife out of Will, wiped it on Mina's shift, and kicked the body over the rim to the stones at the bottom. Then he started back down the cliff side, towing her behind. He didn't slow when he reached the bottom, just kept pullin her along over the rocks while she shrieked and danced, tryin to avoid the worst of em. When she fell, he just dragged her without slowin down till she found her feet. That happened three times. I can't describe what her free arm and legs looked like by the time they got back.

"He stood over me with Mina sobbin on her bloody knees beside him, hangin from his fist by one wrist, and I wet myself. Good thing I wasn't wearin pants, I guess. He just said, 'Your room,' and I skedaddled inside to the little lean-to room where I spent my nights alone. He closed the door behind me, leavin just the light that found its way through the cracks in the walls. I huddled into my blanket and tried to shut out the sounds comin from the main room."

Kaylee fell silent. He held her stiffly, afraid to move. The fire had lowered to a flicker that barely illuminated them. The sound of the surf, the meager fire, and the log on which they sat comprised their entire universe. Neither of them looked up at the stars.

She took a deep breath and let it out. "He kept at it way after Mina quit screamin. After a long while, I realized I hadn't heard that belt on her flesh for a spell, and figured he was done with her, for now at least. I listened with my cheek against the door, but I didn't hear anything. But I was too scared to do anything else right away. Finally, I opened the door and peeked out into the main room.

"For a second, I didn't know what I was lookin at. It looked like he'd hung a butchered animal from the beam overhead. Then it whimpered a little, real soft, and I recognized her.

"Her shift was bloody rags on the floor around her feet. He'd hung her by her wrists, so high only her toes touched the floor. Her beautiful hair was a matted mess dyed with her blood. He'd left her face alone, mostly, but that belt had been on every inch of her from the neck down, and she was near skinned alive. I don't think he took her shift off before he started. It just sorta came apart and fell off her after awhile.

"I wasn't tall enough to reach the rope around her wrists, so I dragged a chair to her, half blind with tears. When I touched the knot, her eyes flew open and she screamed, 'No!' First thought was I was hurting her. Second was she was out of her mind and she thought I was him, come back to start again. Then she said, 'Don't touch me. When he comes back, he'll see. He'll see.' That stopped me cold, and I sat down on that chair and cried.

"After a while, I got my wits back and took a look around the room. You can guess what it was like. I told you he was particular about how things looked when he came back, and for sure he'd already be in a bad mood, maybe the worst ever. So I got rags and water and a brush and started washing blood off the walls and furniture. Cleaning house with her hanging like a butchered hog in the middle of the room, maybe dying. But it was all I could do.

"I couldn't reach the ceiling, even on a chair. I could only hope he wouldn't kill me for being short. The floor was just painted with her. I scrubbed the spatters farthest from her, but I couldn't clean the floor under her cause she wasn't done bleeding. I got a big pan and set it under her to catch the drips. I guided her feet into it, one at a time, and she didn't make a sound. I don't think she was really there, just livin from one breath to the next and not tracking anything else. My hands were red to the wrists by the time I was done. That made me look at myself, at the luh suh under my fingernails and stiffening the ends of my hair and my wet shift stained pink, and I knew I'd never pass muster. But the only clean clothes I had were on the line outside, and I was scared to poke my nose out. I just sat and shivered for a while. Then I sorta sneaked out, expectin his hand to drop on my shoulder every second." She shivered. "Will's body was still crumpled at the bottom of the cliff. I remember it was already in shadow, even though it was long before sundown; it got dark early in the bottom of that pit.

"I went back inside and cleaned up and changed. After that, I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I just sat down next to her, and we waited.

"Wasn't long before the light started to go. I decided I had to wash my sister's face, at least, and I wet a rag. She woke up again from that, I guess. And that's when she said it, the first time she'd spoke since I tried to get her down. She said, "I'm sorry, Kaylee. I'm so sorry." I was flummoxed, wondering how she could think any of this was _her_ fault, till I took her real meaning." Kaylee leaned forward and hugged herself, seeming to shrink. "Night was coming fast. And when he came back for fun and games in the back bedroom, it wouldn't be Mina he took this time."

A knot among the sullen coals popped. Kaylee started with a little gasp, then huddled back into herself, alone even with his arms around her. Simon wondered where the others were, if they'd all gone inside for the night. He wished desperately for someone to join them, someone who could do more for her than bear silent witness. Someone like the Shepherd or Inara, who knew the ways of the world and its people, who could offer her some comfort and advice.

She took a breath and let it out. "After that, night seemed to fall like a stone. We didn't have a lantern or anything like unless he was there. So we waited in the dark. And after a while, I heard footsteps.

"But they weren't right. There were too many of em, and stepping too cautious and quiet. I used up the last crumb of courage I had and said, 'Hello?'

"The door swung open fast, and a couple men poked rifles in. I think it took them a second to ken what they were seeing, just like I had. One of them said, 'Anyone else?'

"'No,' I said to him. 'But he's coming back. He always comes back.' The other one who'd looked in pulled back, and I could hear him sicking up outside. Another man stepped in the doorway, and those two came in and took her down while I went for my blanket.

"It was Will's people, three of them. His pa was the one spoke to me. He looked over what the bad man had done to Mina and he carried her out of that place in his arms, wrapped in my blanket. He passed by Will's body, and one of the men started to ask a question, but he cut him off. 'We'll come back for what's left of him when we can. This one needs us more.'

"They brought us home, and our folks near died to see us. Those three men couldn't pay for a meal or a bed or a pair of shoes or anything else they wanted in my home town the two days they were there. And they sit at our dinner table whenever their travels bring em our way."

The fire was down to embers, and the stars pressed down on them. To Simon, they didn't seem friendly at all.

"He never got caught. He might've come back after we all left, but there was nobody there to hold him. Could be he never went back. Maybe he saw the others, or some instinct told him to skedaddle. There was talk of 'bringing the monster to justice,' but local law was just a marshal and two deputies. New Home got occupied early in the War, so there was troops billeted in town, but the Federal fellas had bigger criminals to chase, I guess, like those boys who burned the Alliance flag in the town square. Word went out all over New Home, course, but nothing ever come of it. So it seemed the best thing to do was put it behind us."

Simon felt certain his love hadn't put it entirely behind her and never would. But he asked anyway. "And did you?"

She shook her head, faintly outlined by starlight rather than the nearly-dead fire. "We tried, Lord knows, but it wouldn't stay there. Willamina was always there to put it in our faces. She never got over what he did. I'm not talking about the scars, least not the ones on the outside. She stayed quiet, like she was still in that shack with him in a mood. She took to wandering off and had to be watched all the time. Sometimes she'd start shrieking for no reason and huddle in a corner. Kinda like River, only without the big words. We still had hope she'd come back to us someday. But then, about the time her skin healed over, her belly started to swell."

He swallowed to wet his throat. "So Will…"

"Is hers and _his_. I spose on some Core World they'd have ended him, but it's not our way. She carried her baby and had him, though childbirth was hard on a girl her age, and the doctor said she'd prolly never have another. That was an awful shame, specially since she couldn't bring herself to love him. I hear tell of women come with child through that kinda misfortune, and love for their baby gets them through the pain of how they got it. But it didn't work that way for Mina. She couldn't even look at him. Ma named him after that boy who died tryin to save us, and raised him up herself with a little help from me. All he got from Mina was her milk till he was weaned.

"About the time little Will was learning to walk, Mina went missing, just disappeared. The only place she could have gone was the forest east of town – the one _he_ led us through. The search combed those woods all the way to that shack. But we never found her. That was ten, eleven years ago. Will knows his real ma died in the woods when he was a baby, but nobody's gonna tell him another word about the rest of it till he's man-tall." She took a breath and let it out, seeming worn out by her tale. "So now you know the worst about me that I've got to tell."

"Kaylee…" He searched for words of reassurance and comfort, something she hadn't likely heard a hundred times from her family as she grew up. "It wasn't your fault. All the blame belongs to the man who took you."

"I know what he did, and how little choice he left me. I'm not talking about anything he made me do. I'm talkin about…" She choked, and he drew her closer. She sobbed while he held her. "I spent the whole afternoon cleanin house with her hangin in arm's reach. Just hangin there like a hog in a butcher's window, cause I couldn't get my mind off what he'd do to me if I took her down. I didn't even look at her, not even when I set her feet in that pan. That's what haunts me, how I let fear win out over love."

She was invisible in the dark now, just a presence in his arms and a small still voice. "That man Early. I think he was a reader like River, but he liked twisting people's hearts and watching them squirm. He had plenty of fun with me. The first second I saw him standing there staring at me, I heard my own voice saying _he always comes back_. I had this crazy thought it was _him _in another man's skin_, _that he'd come aboard with me and hid, biding his time. He caught it, and it was all he needed to start. He asked me if I'd ever been raped, knowing it would steal my breath and take the last little bit of starch out of me. He told me he could think of all manner of things to do to me, and I almost lost my water. He made me tell him I was helpless and alone. And when he was done, I was ten years old again, alone with _him_ in that close little shack, and it was all I could do to keep on my feet. He laid me on the deck and wrapped my wrists and ankles with bindings a little kid could've got out of, knowing I wouldn't try them. Knowing I'd just lay there while he had his way with all of you. Cept River called me on ship's com and talked a little courage back into me, just barely enough."

She pulled out of his arms and stood, silhouetted against the stars. "I know you can't understand that. You'd face anything for River, and you don't fear for yourself at all." She faced the dead fire, as if seeking warmth that was no longer there. "You're the bravest man I know."

"Say that again the next time we suit up for a trip out on the hull." Simon looked up at the night sky. To him, it didn't seem friendly at all. The stars seemed to peer down at him like the observers in the operating theater at MedAcad, waiting with cool detachment for him to make a decision that would turn out either heroic or tragic.

He stood and fumbled in the dark for a stick from the woodpile he'd gathered. He stirred the ashes, digging up buried coals that glowed dully and brought a hint of warmth to his face and hands. He broke the branch, set it atop the embers, and reached for another. "Kaylee, what did you say to my father when he left us at Boros? When you whispered in his ear, and made him smile?"

"I said…" She paused. "I said, 'Now I see what kind of grown man he'll be, I love him even more.'"

The wood smoked, obscuring the coals again. Simon added more sticks, leaving plenty of air space. "I'm nothing like my father. That's not a son's independence talking. It's true. I wish I could be more like him. He always knows the right thing to do." He bent low to blow on the smoking pile.

The fire blazed up suddenly, stealing their night vision and making the stars disappear. He straightened, and saw that her attention had shifted from the darkness above to him. She held her hands out toward the fire and rubbed them together. "Maybe you don't always know the right thing to do, but what you do always seems to turn out right."

"No. Not always." He took a breath. "While my father and Sessions were working to get River out, I was trying to reach her too, clumsily, moving among men I didn't understand at all. I got involved with this group that claimed to be an underground movement. They weren't, just a criminal gang with a fondness for revolutionary slogans, but I took them at face value. I thought they could get to her and rescue her. So I offered them whatever they wanted."

"Money, more than I ever saw, I suppose."

"All I had." He stared into the rising fire. "But it wasn't enough to sway them. They couldn't trust me, they said. Not a child of privilege who'd never missed a meal, who'd dined in the fanciest halls on Osiris with the people they were trying to overthrow. To get their cooperation, I'd have to join them… and prove myself."

Her hand slipped into his and squeezed.

He squeezed in return, but didn't look at her, just stared into the flames. "It started harmlessly enough, I thought. They had some use for my skill as a doctor." He gave a head shrug. "Their jobs never seemed to go smooth either. They supported themselves with thefts and smuggling and other criminal acts. Some of their deals involved stolen pharmaceuticals. I was called on to check the goods and make sure they got what they paid for. I got familiar with the trade and the players, and they gave me the job of putting together the deals. Before long, I was planning the thefts, too, raiding clinics and warehouses. The hospital caper was just an idea, though. I never did it until we raided Saint Lucy's."

"That's how you knew the street value of the drugs from the hospital, and what to take." Kaylee nodded. "Wondered about that."

"Shepherd Book did too, I think. He made some remark about me being a 'criminal mastermind' that was a bit too pointed for comfort." He took a breath and let it out. "But that was just the beginning."

A distant bellow sounded from the darkness some distance down the beach, making them both jump: Jayne. Then River shrieked, and Simon took a step that way before he heard her laughter follow.

Kaylee's hand was still in his; she tugged him back to the log to sit. "They're fine. She's safe with him, safer than if she's alone."

He forebore to say that she hadn't seemed so sure of the big man a short while before. His medical training included only the sketchiest knowledge of psychology, but he knew that deep-seated fears resulting from childhood trauma bypassed rational thought and close-held sentiments alike.

They sat holding hands without a word, quietly listening. Before long they heard heavy feet pounding along the shore, headed their way. Simon heard his sister cry, "_Faster!_ I'm not dry yet!"

"Well, I'm wet as a dog in the rain," was Jayne's reply. "Twixt you drippin on me and the sweatin I'm doin."

"Shouldn't have thrown me in, then. Or offered to dry me off after."

"Already gone half a mile with you." Jayne jogged into the edge of the firelight. River rode his back, her thighs clasping his hips and gripped in his big hands while her arms wound around his massive shoulders. Her wet hair clung to her, as did her wet clothes, and she seemed to press against Jayne's back more firmly than a good seat required. "What I gotta do next, climb a gorram tree?"

"No trees, ape man. And it was only a hundred meters." Horse and rider passed out of the light, headed up the beach. Her voice began to fade with distance. "Get to the top of the dune, and it's my turn."

"That'll be the day." They passed out of hearing, and the surf was the only sound once more.

Simon stood and threw more wood on the fire, almost the last of what he'd scavenged off the beach. The flames rose. "I don't want to tell the rest, on my word I don't. But I will, if you want to hear."

"Come back to me, and finish it." From the log where she still sat, Kaylee offered her hand. "You've had it locked away long enough." When he was settled, she snuggled into him, gazing into the fire. "They were setting you up for something, getting you too far in to back out."

He stared at her. _I love her. She's beautiful and sweet and has gifts that baffle me. But I never suspected until now that she might be smarter than I am._ "I wish you'd been there to warn me."

"Doesn't matter. You'd have done it anyway. What did they want?"

He shifted his attention to the fire. "Information. About the Twelve Families, everything I knew. Habits, vices, relationships, personal secrets, business dealings. And details about how they lived. Their routines, travel preferences, items about their estates. I'd been visiting their homes all my life, but I was shocked at the sheer volume of what my... associates wrung out of me. Security arrangements, keypad codes, floor plans. Staff schedules. Even tidbits of gossip I didn't realize I'd heard. I thought it was going to be used for theft or burglary." He gave a shrug, a short, choppy gesture that was really a stifled impulse to strike out at something.

"Simon." Kaylee looked up at him. "Good people make awful mistakes sometimes. It's not right to hate yourself over it."

"I should have guessed what they were up to. I knew what sort of people they were. They talked about 'doing away with the oppressors' often enough."

He realized he was squeezing her hand hard enough to hurt her, and opened his fingers. But she gave no sign of pain, and hung on to his open palm. He took a breath. He'd thought he could never tell another soul this story, but once he started, the words wouldn't stop tumbling out of his mouth. "Four servants and two guards were killed during the kidnappings. I knew them all. They took six people, two of them children. The ransom demands were impossible to meet. The money was one thing, but the political ultimatums were another. They killed a hostage to prove they meant business. He was an old friend of my father's, the man who'd given me the stethoscope I took to MedAcad."

The fire was lowering again, but the stars didn't reappear. He supposed the sky was clouding over, hiding them. "I would have gone to the police if I could have helped them. But all I knew about the plot was the source of the kidnappers' information. I'd have gone to jail, or the block, and River would have lost her only chance of escape. Or so I told myself." He stood, slipping out of Kaylee's arms, and tossed on the last of the firewood. "The hideout was discovered through a casual witness and raided a few days later. All the other victims were recovered unharmed, except for one young woman, a cousin of my mother's, who'd been… abused. Several of the kidnappers escaped and were never apprehended. I broke the last of my ties with my family then, because I was sure the police would uncover my link to those monsters. I hadn't lived at home for some time, but I unlisted my code and moved to a blackout zone. I spent two months living on cash and barter, thoroughly illegal on Osiris, while I waited to be found. Eventually I was, but not by the police. One of the men from the Underground, or so I thought then. He directed me to Persephone to pick up my 'package'. The rest you know. I thought I was being paid for my services, but it was all for nothing."

"You couldn't know that," Kaylee said, standing behind him. "The fix River was in didn't leave you any good choices. But you couldn't just sit by." her arms circled his waist, and he felt her head on his shoulder blade. "I gotta be the luckiest girl in the world."

"After what happened to you? How can you say that?"

"Simon, men like that are rarer than a two-headed cow. Gotta be, or the 'Verse would just fall apart. I already met two; I won't cross paths with another if I live to be a hundred. There's good in most anybody, though it might be buried too deep to be worth goin after." She squeezed him. "But men who'll do anything for love are just as hard to find, and I got me one."

A strange noise from up the beach grew louder as its source approached: footsteps, lighter and quicker than the big merc's, combined with a soft hissing. River jogged into the firelight, pulling a crude travois across the hard sand. Big elbows were visible poking out of either side of the frame. River stopped at closest approach to the fire, blowing hard, and Simon saw Jayne lying at ease in the sling between the poles with his hands clasped behind his head.

The big man said, "Still say it's cheatin. Then again, I got nothin against a little cheatin, long's it's honest. Reckon you win my dessert tonight."

River grinned. "I'll share, but only if we use the same spoon."

"Dunno bout that. Might catch crazy germs or suchlike."

River let go the handles, and the travois thumped to the ground. Jayne _hoof_ed and rolled out as the girl walked to the fire in her still-damp clothes. She rubbed her hands and gooseflesh-pebbled upper arms to warm them. "Little mouse," she said, "scuttling from hole to hole, but the cat's out there somewhere, all sharp claws and cold amused eyes."

"Shiia," the big man said as he rose and brushed at his clothes. "Best you two finish up your spoonin and head in soon. Captain says we're liftin at first light, and a damn fine idea it is, too, you ask me." Jayne's voice held no trace of resentment at his mention of the captain. "C'mon, Moony, let's leave em to their business and get you in some dry clothes."

"Jayne?" Kaylee pulled away from Simon to face Jayne and River as they stepped away from the fire. "What was the argument about?"

Jayne gathered his eyebrows. "Argument?"

"With the Cap'n, earlier, before you walked down the beach."

The big man shook his head. "Wasn't no argument. He just brought some bad news bout the next leg a the trip, and I was blowin off steam about it. Reavers hit Ayers Rock yesterday. They're long gone, a course, but that's only six hours away."

"You had your hand on your knife. Cap'n's hand was on his gun."

"Ah, hell." Jayne looked into the fire, avoiding their eyes. "It's only natural for a man's hand to find whatever weapon it can, when he's talkin bout Reavers." He pressed a big hand into River's shoulder blades and urged her into the dark in the direction of the ship. "Don't know why those two don't just move into a passenger cabin and be done."

"They will," River said, her voice fading into the dark, "As soon as Kaylee tells Simon why she likes strawberries better than sex, and he tells her about Bethany and Beatrice Chan and the medical cadavers."

Simon and Kaylee turned to each other. "I don't know _what_ she's…"


	3. Book and Jayne: Hired Guns

Jayne stood at the little shack's door, hands flexing on the assault rifle he carried. "Gettin tired a messin around like this. I say we rush em."

"Seems a bit impractical," the Shepherd observed, almost invisible in the dark, just a faint gleam of reflected light off eyes and hair and teeth and the rifle as he hefted it. "It being we're the ones on the inside, and there are men shooting at us all around."

"Oh, ye a little faith." Jayne grinned and moved to the knocked-out little window alongside the door, being careful to stay well back so as not to be visible to those outside. It was long past sundown, but the scene was well-lit by the burning buildings all about the big farmstead. He spotted movement and fired at a man sprinting for the cover of an overturned wagon. His target sprawled ten feet short of his goal and lay still in the dust. Jayne moved to the window on the adjacent wall, looking for more. "Two sneakin around to your side."

"I see them. So, you _have_ read the Book." The Shepherd watched his assigned windows carefully, but didn't fire. The preacher was doing less shooting than Jayne, and the shouting outside and return fire from that half of the building was equally sparse. There was, however, a chorus of groaning and lamentation going on out there. Jayne had sneaked a quick look and had seen a fair bit of blood wetting the dirt, but no bodies. The caterwauling was coming from men behind cover.

Jayne saw a head pop up from behind a rubble pile and lifted his weapon, but it ducked back down before he could take a shot. "Holed up in a lotta hotel rooms in my time, sometimes for days. Didn't always have a whore for company. But seems like every rented room in the 'Verse has a Bible in a drawer somewheres."

Book's rifle snapped up for one quick shot. A man outside yowled and cursed, and another yelled in alarm. "I can hope you got at least as much education from the latter as the former."

"You can learn plenty from a willin woman, Shepherd. Not changing the subject, but ya know if ya just shoot em in the leg, they can still shoot back, right?"

"But they seldom do. A smashed kneecap takes your mind off everything else, believe me."

"Yeah, well, mosta the men on your side ain't even shot. How come they ain't firin?"

"Well, once they realized every injured man on this side of the shack took a bullet in the right knee, it created a sort of understanding between us."

_They understand_, Jayne thought, _that the hwundan shooting at them could be hurting them lots worse if he wanted_. _So they keep to cover and try not to rile him. _He would have liked to scoff at such a tactic, but there was no arguing with the preacher's results. "How you set for ammo?"

"For this rifle, ten rounds plus another magazine of thirty. Then I'll just pick up another." Book glanced at a corner of the room where three bound and gagged men sat glaring up at him. "We've got weapons and ammunition aplenty, thanks to these unfortunate souls."

"Wouldn't call gettin roughed up and hogtied a misfortune, compared to gettin shot." A bullet spanged off the nearest windowsill, throwing a spray of stone chips into the room. Jayne flinched and swung his rifle towards the opening, and noticed a flickering illumination on the ground behind a fieldstone fence forty yards distant. He sent a couple of rounds into the fence's top, delivering a spray of his own and giving the men behind it something to think about besides jumping the fence and rushing the shed with their torches. The little outbuilding he and Book were holed up in was stone-walled, but the roof was thatch, and Jayne aimed to keep men bearing fire out of throwing range. It was a damn good thing none of the hwundans out there was prosperous enough to afford a laser weapon, he thought. "Misfortune is gettin sent to pick up a coupla crates a fresh food and runnin into a bunch a bad-tempered vigilantes instead." _More than a bunch_, he thought. There'd been so many wagons parked around the place, he'd thought he and the Shepherd might have arrived at the start of a barnraising. At least, until the shooting had started. "How you figure we stepped in it this time?"

"Oh, one of the usual ways, I expect." Almost casually, the preacher lifted his weapon, fired once, then moved to another window and fired again. A screech accompanied the second shot, followed by calls for help. No one answered. "Our captain provoking someone with a sense of entitlement, or a breakdown in negotiations of some sort. Or a violation of local customs." Book gave Jayne a sharp glance. "I trust you've been treating their women with respect."

"All the respect they want, Shepherd." On Jayne's side, two men sprang from cover and rushed the house, one firing a pistol at the window, the other carrying a flaming brand. Jayne dealt with the torch-wielder first as the greater threat: shooting on the run with a pistol, the other shagua wasn't even hitting the building more than one time out of three. Neither got within twenty yards before ending up facedown in the dirt. "But a couple of em was hungry for some serious disrespect."

"And you couldn't bear to see them starve. Very charitable."

"I'm allus happy to be doin good works." Outside, a besieger behind the stone wall raised up just a mite too high as he tried to walk its length bent in a crouch, and got a bullet crease across his back for his carelessness.

"So tell me, Jayne. Is this the new life you pictured when you left the farm?"

Jayne scoffed, scanning the landscape outside. The scene was still bright enough for marksmanship; their little shed looked like the only building on the farmstead that hadn't been fired, and the barn was sending flames a hundred feet into the sky. But straw and dry lumber wouldn't burn long. When darkness closed in, their attackers' chances would improve, if the shaguas hadn't got themselves all shot before then. "Just makin conversation, Shepherd? Or you thinkin I might wanna offer up a confession?"

"Just conversation. I don't have much practice saving souls, but I'm fair certain a worthy confession requires repentance."

Jayne grinned. "Ayuh. About the only sins I ever regretted is the ones I passed up. If there's a hell, it's a world fulla missed chances. As for my plans… Hell, no, Shepherd. This is better'n I ever figured things'd turn out. But it wasn't easy reachin this level a success."

The Shepherd didn't laugh at that like many men would. Jayne had decided long ago that Book was a man of understanding, not some fang pi who liked to judge folks, and he knew things a man who'd spent his life chanting at his belly button never could. It did seem strange, though, for a man of the cloth to admit not knowing how to save a soul. Instead, Book said, "What called you to it? Why did you leave home and family?"

Jayne stared out into the dusty yard, seeing another landscape in his mind's eye: different, but not much. Too many Rim rocks looked just like this one. "If you was ever a farm boy you wouldn't ask. Not if you spent every spring for years starin at the south end of a horse from sunup to sundown, eatin the clods it kicked up while you wrestled with the gorram plow. And addin to the walls around your fields with the rocks you turned up. Never served jail time that hard. Sixteen was the soonest I could get away, and it wasn't a minute too soon."

Things had got quiet outside; maybe the foe was up to something, or maybe, Jayne thought, they'd finally figured out time was on their side and decided to wait. "Headed for the nearest town big enough for indoor plumbing, lookin to make my fortune. Course I fell in with bad company right away, and lost what little I brung with me. That's when I got a good look at the prospects for a big farm kid with no schoolin." He grinned out the window. "For a while, I was workin harder than I had on the farm, just for food and a place to sleep. I dug and lifted and carried for some old Chinaman with a store, and that hwundan sent me to bed tired and hungry every night, but it was the best I could find. That is, till a couple yokels come in the store, thinking they were gonna get old Han to buy 'insurance' from em by bustin the place up. I tossed em into the street when I was done with em. They laid there half the day, folks just steppin around em like they were niu fan, till they came to and crawled away.

"Next day I got approached by a friend of a friend –'quaintance, really. He had a job offer that paid real coin if I was willin to take a little risk. I jumped on it. They didn't mention the 'risks' included a bullet or jail, but the pay was just what they promised, and it made me mighty forgivin. I sent some home, enough to hire a hand to make up for me bein gone. And I still had plenty for food and drink and a fancy room with the softest bed I ever slept in – and somebody to share it all with." Jayne ran a tongue over his lips, remembering. "That was my first time. And second, and third. Ai ya, she broke me in right. And offered me my money back, besides. Wish I could remember her name."

The preacher cleared his throat. "Where did you ride out the War? I know you didn't take a side."

Jayne grinned at the change of subject. Shepherd was a practical man most ways, but Jayne supposed it was only natural a monk would be uncomfortable with sex talk. "There were plenty places didn't even know there was a war on, Shepherd. I reckon you were in one too, hey? But I bet mine was more fun."

"I don't doubt it."

The iron in the old man's tone surprised Jayne and warned him off that subject, and made him think maybe the Shepherd hadn't spent those five years behind abbey walls. "Still, gorram war wasn't over soon enough. Got a letter from home said my older brother'd gone and volunteered. There was a capture of the shagua boarding a ship and wavin goodbye, lookin all serious and he-roic in his fine brown coat. Last any of us saw of him." Jayne inspected his magazine and counted the rounds in it through the inspection slot: nineteen. Then he counted them again. "Fang pi promised me a hunnert times he'd teach me to play guitar, but he never did."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well, if that's the worst life's got lined up for me, I'm a lucky man. And I am. I bounced around the 'Verse a good bit. Even with the War on, there was lotsa traffic. It'd make Mal and Zoë grind teeth ta hear it, but there was plenty a people out here who were rootin for the Alliance, and plenty more on both sides of the border didn't care if the War never ended, cause war is a great way ta get rich if you got an angle."

"I'm well aware." Again in that creepifying tone.

"Anyway, I found, whatchacall, job situations, some bad, some not so bad. Worked on both sides of the lines, and didn't hardly notice when the War ended. Along the way, I learned shootin and fightin and dirty tricks from some of the best and the meanest." He paused, remembering. "Did some things I ain't proud of now, but I was still learnin, and sometimes there's sitcheeations you just sorta get pulled into. I got comfortable livin with men who'd share a bottle with me then shoot me in the back if the payoff was worth the risk. I just made sure the risk allus looked too big. One of them jobs led me to this one, and here I am. And if I ever start cursin my luck, I think about what it woulda been like ta spend the last twenty years or so behind that horse." He wished mightily for a drink, but there was nothing in the little shed, not even water. "Anyways, I'm not really scared a dyin. If it turns out you fellas was right all along, well, I laid my money down and rolled the dice. Part of the fun of gamblin's the not knowin. Not that I 'spect you to see it that way, but I'd bet you ain't scared to meet your Maker either."

"You'd lose that bet, Jayne Cobb. Sometimes I'm so afraid of death, I don't want to admit it exists."

Something in the old man's tone drew Jayne's eye; Book was staring out the window, but not looking for gunmen. "That right? You don't seem like a man who lost his faith, Shepherd."

"I'm not. That's why I'm afraid. Not to die, but to meet Him unready. I've got so much to do yet, and I've squandered so much time."

Jayne decided he'd been handed the opening he'd been looking for almost since the old man had come aboard. "Well, I just about told ya my life story. How bout you, Shepherd? Got any tales ta tell, sides monk jokes?"

Book gave no answer. The light was beginning to fade, making it harder to spot movement outside. Jayne thought he saw half a head ease around the side of the overturned wagon, down low to the ground, and ease back out of sight. "Come on, Shepherd. You ever gonna cut loose and tell us who you really are? Least you can tell me how a preacher knows so much about crime." _Or where you learned to cuss, _he thought, remembering the time Zoë had brought back Mal's ear in a hanky. _Never thought I'd hear 'filthy goat-fucker' come out of a preacher's mouth, even in Chinee. _"You see the light late in life or somethin?"

"See the light?" Book scoffed. "Not the way you mean it. I entered seminary school at fourteen. I've been clergy ever since. What I know of crime and criminals, I learned mostly from confessions."

"Well, where ya from, then? Sometimes I think I hear a little Core in your talk."

"Londinium, a district called Whitechapel. Perhaps you've heard of it."

Jayne had spent some time on Londinium, and had known a few rough customers from Whitechapel – very rough, actually. Never exactly a garden spot, the place had fallen all the way to the status of a blackout zone just before the War. Jayne thought it a fine poke in the nose to a world that styled itself one of the two centers of culture and right governance in the 'Verse, that it should have such places within sight of the towers of the capital. That explained a few things, though. Even at fourteen, a boy would have had to be plenty tough to survive in Whitechapel. "Heard somethin. Leave any family there?"

"A mother and three older sisters. My mother's husband was in prison since before I was born. He died there, I hear. I never thought of him as family."

"Wha'd he do?"

"Killed a man," the Shepherd said shortly.

Jayne decided he'd touched another subject the Shepherd wasn't ready to talk about, but his mouth hadn't quite caught up with his brain. "He have a reason?"

"He thought so. The man he killed was the one who put me into his wife."

Jayne thought that statement worth a bit of silence. Now that he wasn't constantly sighting through the window, his night vision was sharpening, and he could see Book's face better, even though the fires were dying down some. The old man looked tired, an uncommon occurrence. "Ya know, Shepherd, I ain't a churchy fella. But no criminal in his right mind is gonna give up all the dope on what he does to somebody ain't part of it, preacher or no. Seems like a fine way to get caught."

The preacher bowed his head, as if praying. Jayne hoped he was still keeping an eye on the windows. Jayne had just about given up on an answer when the old man lifted his head, stared out the window, and said, "Well. They didn't really want to confess, at first. And they were already caught."

The view out the windows was forgotten. Jayne's mind cast back to his time on the worlds of the Core, and the occasional mention of some very special Feds, said mentioning usually done in hushed voices with an eye over one shoulder. Nobody he'd talked to had actually encountered them – the crooks Jayne ran with weren't big enough fish to merit their attention – but the stories all sort of matched up.

Inside the Federal Police, or maybe alongside it, was a crack unit, a big one that worked independent of the regular chain of command. It was said that its members were all priests of the Church of Man, the Christian church that most everybody who wasn't a Buddhist belonged to in the Core and lots of places beyond the border as well. Whether these fellows were priests trained as cops or cops gone into the priesthood, nobody knew, but they conducted their business like fanatics – or crusaders. The name given to them by Jayne's sort was 'Templars'; nobody knew what they called themselves. The Alliance gave them only the toughest and most politically touchy cases because they were reckoned impossible to bribe or coerce, and it gave them a free hand and turned a blind eye to their methods. Those methods included use of force not allowed regular Feds, from commando raids that looked like the start of another war to just picking a man off the street without an explanation and marching him off for interrogation. Their interrogation methods were only hinted at in whispers. But they _always _got confessions, and they _always_ cracked their cases, and if the guilty party was so rich or powerful he'd likely never come to his proper reward through the justice system, he had an accident, or just disappeared. The Templars were policemen who scared the people they were sworn to protect, and made ordinary criminals lose their water.

"Powers. You're one a _them_?"

The older man huffed, eyes still fixed out the window. "Doubt it. I'm fair certain the Office of the Confessor General isn't much like the 'Them' you've heard about."

"But you said you're clergy. That means you're a real preacher. Right?"

"Yes and no." The man's voice was bleak. "I was ordained, which meant I'd studied the teachings of the Church and sworn oaths, offered my life to God before witnesses and put on the uniform. I know the dogma and the gestures and ceremonies. But I was never a preacher, and I never wanted to be; all that was just something I had to do to join the Order. I thought of myself as a missionary of sorts, but I preferred teaching transgressors the error of their ways and making them repent with a boot heel on their necks and a rifle muzzle in their ear. A soldier in God's army, not a tender of flocks."

"What are ya doin way out here, Shepherd? You fellas branchin out?" _What business have you got on Serenity, and who are you after?_

"I'm on sabbatical, not an assignment. Walking the world at the pleasure of my bishop, the leader of our order." The Shepherd's tone lightened up a little. "He called me to his office with no warning one day. We'd been gathering intel on a credit-laundering ring, very high up, sixteen worlds involved. We'd been waiting forever for a go-ahead, and the surveillance teams-" He caught himself. "Let's just say I thought it'd be a new case. Instead, he said he'd heard a whisper from God at his morning prayers. He told me to pack for an extended absence from duty, a pilgrimage." He huffed. "You could have dropped me with a stale bao. He said it had been revealed to him in prayer that he'd been neglecting his duties towards his flock - his flock being the robed roughnecks, killers, and con men who were his subordinates in the Order. Over the years we'd all been trying to ease the suffering of our people and lead our temporal leaders to righteousness-" The words came out of the old man's mouth like some motto he'd quoted all his life "-we'd come to place too much importance on worldly concerns. Our spirits had shriveled, and we'd grown distant from God. He was going to do what he could to rectify that, starting with me, since I was clearly the worst case in his house."

The roof of the nearby barn collapsed in a volcano of sparks. The light flared. Both men studied the view outside the windows, but there was nothing showing. The besiegers, apparently, had gotten tired of taking losses and decided to wait.

Jayne, still looking out the window, said, "No offense, Shepherd, but that bishop a yours don't sound right in the head."

"He's the sanest and smartest man I've ever known. But, just for that moment, I might have agreed with you." Jayne could just make out the Shepherd's silver hair move as he shook his head. "Known that man since I was a boy, and that was the first time I ever argued with him. It was a waste of breath. I spoke of our important work, and the people in peril who needed our full efforts. I told him I had no time. He said I'd just proved his case, standing in front of him in my priest's garb and talking about having no time for God. He reminded me that the Church's first business is saving souls for the next life, not providing them with comfort in this one. Then he quoted the Son of Man's warnings that good works aren't proof of godliness or a guarantee of grace. 'How does a man profit, who gains the world at the cost of his soul? He wasn't just talking about grubbing money, Brother Derrial.' He said that if I truly wanted to do God's work, it was time to tend to the imminent peril of my own soul, and repeated his order. Then he gave me his own Bible to take with me.

"That's what froze all my good reasons in my throat, more than any of Bishop Sato's arguments. That Bible was a shabby thing, with cracked leather covers and dog-eared pages and a million hours of study and devotion in it… and I never felt so far from God when I was knocking down doors and interrogating suspects as I did when I stood there with it in my hands. My own sat on a polished wooden stand, flanked by beautifully carved candles - a shrine almost, the centerpiece of my quarters. But when you opened it, the cover and spine were stiff as steel, and you could still smell fresh paper and ink as you riffled the pages, even after years of ownership. It was an epiphany. 'Build a ministry,' he said to me. 'It needn't be large; in fact, small would be best. Find your way back to God by guiding others, if you can. Then, if you're still of a mind, return, and we'll talk.' Eventually he convinced me, enough to end my protests anyway. I packed all I owned, harvested my garden, and took to the road. A day later, I was in space aboard _Serenity_."

Jayne huffed. "Ya didn't get much of a flock there, Shepherd."

The old man chuckled. "Oh, I had doubts aplenty my first few days aboard. This crew's lifestyle makes it too easy to slip back into old habits – and old attitudes. I told Inara that I thought I was on the wrong ship. I'd forgotten what readers Companions are. She told me, 'Or maybe, you're exactly where you need to be.' Bless that child. Leave it to someone schooled in the ways of the flesh to know that you have to feel temptation to learn virtue. And learning to understand folk who were decent but ungodly, that was the same path I needed to tread to find myself, if the Bishop was right. She understood that too."

Jayne said carefully, "You miss her. Anybody with eyes can see that." _And maybe now I got a better reason for it than my dirty mind can supply._ The 'Ambassador' had finally left ship at Sihnon seven weeks before, and it had been a tossup which man had been moodier since – Mal or the Shepherd.

"She was a good friend. She healed my bruised spirit and gave me strength. I loved her for that." The preacher's idle gaze out the window sharpened. Jayne watched him reach for his last spare magazine and change it out without looking at it, a move that spoke of practice. It also spoke of trouble, since Jayne was sure the old man had just discarded a clip with six or eight rounds still in it, as if he thought he might need the extra bullets in a hurry. Jayne stared out his windows. Behind the wall, he could make out heads bobbing, and a flicker of firelight: torches. _Showtime._

"Jayne…"

"I see it." He tightened his grip on the rifle. "You don't think we're getting outta this. Do ya?"

"We're still outnumbered ten to one, there's no rescue in sight, and the light is failing. I believe in God's miracles, but I doubt He has one reserved for me."

"Well, maybe He's got one for me. Prodigal son and all."

"Again, I think there's some repentance involved."

"Well…" A head popped up over the wall and back down again, for the second time in ten seconds. Jayne put his crosshairs on the spot, and when it popped up a third time, he put a bullet in it. "What I said before, that was a buncha fei lao. There's things I wish I'd done different or not at all. On Higgins' Moon, I shoulda dumped the money first instead of Stitch. I wouldna turned River and Simon in to the Feds on Ariel. And… I killed a woman who loved me. And another died just for likin me. I'd change all that if I could."

"You can't change the past. But you can change yourself if you can learn from it."

"Any regrets?"

"More than we have time for. One or two of mine involve women, too." Book raised his rifle and fired three rapid shots, then three more.

Out Jayne's window, three men leaped over the wall and rushed the shack while another fired from behind the wagon. Jayne managed to plug only one of them before they were out of sight behind new cover, closer than before. He moved quickly to the other window, just in time to put a bullet in a man running for the shack. Jayne was sure that the man was just a tail-end Charlie, and that Powers knew how many more were now pressed up against the outside wall. "G'rammit!"

Bullets peppered all four windows at once: cover fire. Jayne and Book ducked back out of the way as lead and stone chips sprayed into the room. The captives on the floor screeched through their gags. Jayne fired blindly at the window opening, just hoping to suppress the attacker's fire a bit. The Shepherd knelt at a corner of a window, stuck rifle and one eye over the lip, and fired three shots before ducking back as the windowsill erupted. "I'm proud to have known you, Jayne Cobb."

Wisps of smoke began to trickle down from the roof. Jayne put a hand on the door handle, ready to fling it open and charge out. "Likewise, Derrial Book."

The entire roof turned to flame and disappeared, dropping embers to the floor. A roaring noise replaced the sound of gunfire. Jayne looked up, and, instead of night sky, he saw steel, the belly of a ship.

Grit blasted through the windows. Men outside stumbled in the howling wind as the earth billowed up all around them and the view disappeared. Jayne pulled the door open just in time to see _Serenity_ swing into view, just yards above the ground, tilling the earth with its drive exhausts and sending everything not anchored to the ground flying away: brush, lumber, embers, men. Horses screamed. The air filled with dust, dropping visibility to nothing. Jayne covered his nose and mouth with the inside of his elbow.

Book said, "Time to go, I think."

"Go where? Can't see a damned thing."

Then they both heard the breathy whine of an approaching shuttle. They heard and felt it touch down close by on the Shepherd's side of the shack. They sprinted out into the tumult towards their unseen rescuer, ignoring the wind and scouring sand and the frequent whacks from airborne truck, their attention focused on finding their ride. About fifty yards from the shack, visibility lifted a bit as _Serenity_ circled around to the other end of the farmyard, and they saw it. They sprinted to it and crowded into the lock.

Jayne took a single step through the second hatch and stopped. Bright fabrics adorned the walls. They were in Shuttle One, Inara's former quarters that hadn't seen use since she'd left.

"Hurry." Inara's voice came from the curtain separating her 'rooms' from the pilot compartment. "Come in and close up."

"Um." Jayne could hear the Shepherd behind him dogging the inner hatch. He also heard an odd slithery sound. He looked down. Sand was falling out of his pants leg to form a little dune on the fancy carpet. "I'm gettin your things all dirty."

"They'll _clean_." The engine wound up. "Find a place to sit."

Book cruised past, all one color from grit and trailing faint wisps of dust. He sat on the floor with his back against the couch, raising a cloud. "Have to say, I wasn't expecting _you_."

"Déjà vu. Settle in, we're going to be flying awhile. We're making for orbital rendezvous, but we'll probably be the first there. Wash is having too much fun to quit yet, and Zoe's in the other shuttle, herding your playmates and making sure they're running in the right direction."

Jayne looked at the Shepherd's tracks across the carpet. He folded his legs and sat without taking another step. "So you're back? When did you get here?"

"An hour ago. I've been chasing you halfway across inhabited space the past two weeks and finally caught up with you here. And immediately find myself plunged into a crisis. It's as if I never left." The deck tilted slightly as she maneuvered; this shuttle's grav had always been a little quirky. It was one reason Mal had chosen this one to rent, or so he'd been told. "I haven't had time for a proper inventory, but I'm quite sure I have some personal items missing. Jayne, do you suppose you could help with that? I know you have a talent for finding lost objects."


	4. Inara and Aliya: Shared History

"I'm different from other women. I accept this." Inara Serra knelt before a large candle on a lacquered wooden stand, a post really, that brought the flame level with her eyes. It was the room's only illumination, and its light did not reach the walls; she and the flame were surrounded by dimensionless darkness. "But do the differences really matter? What of the commonalities? Surely they're more important? I have a family, and plenty of friends – inside the Sisterhood and out. I have a career other women dream of, but it's not the way imagination paints it. It's an art and a profession and very challenging sometimes, and I'm skilled at it, judging by the demand I'm in and the fees I command. I even enjoy it most of the time. But repetition creeps into any job, and sometimes it's hard to work up my enthusiasm. And people would be aghast to learn how much time I spend on recordkeeping and documentation. How is it so different from being a sculptor or an architect?"

Her voice echoed off bare stone, giving some dimension to the darkness-shrouded chamber: the walls were scarcely beyond the candle's light. The flame burned steadily, wavering only when she stirred the air with a breath or a motion. There were no drafts in this room. It was situated deep within the walls of the Great House on Sihnon, as solid as the mountain into which it was dug. For generations, it had been reserved as a place of contemplation, silent and unadorned, free of all distractions. No tapestries hung from the unseen walls, and the only furnishings were the candle, the carpet on which it rested, and a few cushions to kneel upon.

She stared at the candle, and her mouth curved in a tiny smile at the irony: in a world of women who harnessed men with their own desires and steered them as they willed lay this tiny secret retreat adorned only with a phallic symbol, a shrine to male energy and power. A stylized father figure that so many of them turned to in times of doubt or restlessness. _I wonder. Is it especially attractive to the third of us who never knew our fathers? Or is it the flame, the symbol of procreation and eternal life, that draws us?_

She sighed, making the candle flicker. "Why should I feel this chasm between me and other women, normal women? Why can't I share more than a hint of what they feel, what they have?"

A moment of silence, then a woman's voice came from the darkness. "Because, my darling," it said in perfect classical Mandarin, "you know deep down that your notion of their lives is as fanciful as theirs of yours." The interloper stepped into the light on the other side of the candle. She was richly dressed, and resembled Inara strongly enough to be her sister – older or younger sister, it would be difficult to tell. Inara had recognized her voice the instant she spoke. "If you truly understood what they call 'normal', you'd reel in horror at the idea of sharing their fate."

Inara said in the same language, "Aliya, how long have you been here?"

"Who do you suppose lit the candle? I thought at first you saw me when you came in; there was plenty of light from the doorway before you shut it. Then when you knelt and spoke, I thought you were talking to me. By the time I realized, it seemed impolite to interrupt."

"You eavesdropped."

"Shamelessly. Yes." The woman knelt on the other side of the candle and extended her hands. "I'd given up hope you'd ever come back. But there's been no joyful reunion. We've hardly spoken the month you've been here. Everyone sees your troubled spirit. I was looking for a clue, something I might do or say to open your heart to me." The hands remained raised, gracefully upturned, waiting.

Inara sighed again and laced their fingers together, encircling the candle with their arms. "I'm sorry. It's nothing you did. You're blameless, as in all other things that lie between us."

"I wonder. Why did you leave? That business about 'expanding your client base' never made any sense to me. You could have stayed right here and been as busy as you wanted."

Inara shook her head. "Handling your overflow. But they would all have been your clients still. Ever since I began training, I've been in your shadow. Every one of my teachers watched me at my lessons and compared me to you, not that they ever would have admitted it."

"Inara, no. Shared client or not, no man could spend five minutes with you and remain detached enough to make comparisons." She smiled. "And what of your ambition to run the school here? You might have been House Madrassis by now, if you'd stayed."

"Again, only if you tired of the position and vacated it, or left on another of your little missions. That was what woke me to what I was doing, actually. A group of us were talking about our plans one day, and… one of the Sisters was unkind. She asked me if House Madrassis was a hereditary position now. That's when I realized how trapped in your footsteps I was here. If I was to be a real success as a Companion, I had to leave. I needed to be the center of my own professional world, not a guest in yours." She smiled. "Another point of commonality with normal girls. Family rivalries."

Aliya squeezed her fingers. "Tell me then. What did you come home for, if not to see me?" Eyes stared into Inara's through the flame, so alike that Inara might have been speaking with a magic mirror. "Are you hiding? Seeking refuge from an overzealous admirer, perhaps?"

"Nothing like that."

"Then, perhaps," she said quietly, "you're unsettled over having a normal woman's desire? The one desire that's forbidden you?"

Inara felt her breath grow shallow. "I was a fool to think I could come here and still keep this from you."

"Yes, but not the way you mean it. You think I can't understand your plight, but you're wrong." Aliya's voice dropped lower. "I once thought of leaving the Guild for a man. But he wouldn't have me."

"Wouldn't _have_ you?" Inara said, incredulous. She went on, her voice tinged with bitterness. "Because of your career?" _Did he call you 'whore' like it was something dirty?_

The other woman shook her head a few centimeters. "No. It was his career that stood between us. We're still dear friends, though I see him seldom."

"Did you ever…"

"Don't be preposterous." A moment later: "Did _you_?"

"I kissed him once, when he was unconscious and I thought he was dead. No more."

Aliya smiled. "Then you've shown more restraint than I. This man of yours, is he on that capture you think you've been hiding?"

She ducked her head. "Have I been so obvious?"

"You steal glances at it far too often to keep it a secret. May I see?"

Inara let go of Aliya's hands, reached into her capacious sleeve, and passed the capture over. The woman activated it and studied the beginning of the scene, a simple meal in _Serenity's_ galley that would turn merry as Shepherd Book began a story. As the capture panned through the room, showing the diners assembled and conversing at the table, Aliya said, "Well. Are you going to tell me which one he is, or-"

The capture slipped from her hand and fluttered towards the floor. Aliya snatched at it and caught it before it touched the carpet. "Clumsy of me. As I was saying. Do you want me to guess?" When Inara remained silent, she activated it again, smiling. "Hm. The young one in the fancy clothes is certainly handsome, but anyone could see he and the red-haired girl are together. The same for the blond in the… festive shirt, rubbing shoulders with the tall black woman. I think we can dismiss the old preacher out of hand, though he has a very nice smile." She paused the image. "The big one with the goatee is a beautiful animal, but I can't imagine thoughts of him troubling your sleep. It's the man in the work shirt and braces, isn't it?"

Inara dropped her eyes. "Malcolm Reynolds. He's the captain of _Serenity_, my transport."

"Oh, a ship's captain. How romantic."

"Don't tease." She shrugged. "I don't know how it happened. The man irritated me at our first meeting, but he stirred me as well. It's been like that the whole time we've known each other, a combination of dancing and sparring."

"Like swans courting." Aliya nodded. "What changed? Why did you leave him?"

"I… Something happened, something that made me question what I was doing with him. Do you remember Nandi?"

"One of the dropouts in your class, neh? The redhead with the striking eyes and no flair for music. She took up whoring, as I recall. I imagine she's very successful."

"Yes. He slept with her."

Aliya's eyes grew round. "Inara. You're _jealous_?"

"No. I don't know. But it's more complicated than that."

"I take it he didn't couple with her in a professional capacity."

"No."

"But how can you hold it against him, if you kept yourself unavailable? He's only a man."

"Ever since I met him, he's been calling me a whore to needle me. It's his way of telling me that any distinction between a streetwalker and a Companion is pretense. He's full of contempt for the Guild and the whole Companion mystique. As far as he's concerned, I provide sex for money, period. And if I can't accept that, if I have to surround my work with an air of glamour and mystery to market it and call it art to make it palatable, well, then, I'm a less honest sort of whore." Her shoulders slumped. "That's why what he did with Nandi matters so much. That's when he proved the sincerity of all his insults. What _she_ did for a living didn't bother him. He could allow himself to care for her, make love to her even, because she was an _honest_ whore." Her lashes filled with tears. "That was when I woke to what I was doing, and knew that I could never have him."

"Heavens. And his opinion _matters _to you? _He_ matters to you?"

"I know he cares for me. Buddha, he once fought a duel with a man for treating me like property." She stared at Mal's image in Aliya's hands. "But he's a provincial and a romantic and he doesn't accept the Companion definition of love. My relationships with clients gnaw at him - sexual and otherwise. I don't know if even quitting the Guild would be enough to repair that rift between us." She tried to imagine what might happen the first time a former client approached her with Mal nearby, and shook her head.

Her mind cast back to their parting, such as it was, on the catwalk above the cargo hold where the others stood on the ramp, waiting. "I'll have to send for my things after I arrange for storage. The quarters at the Great House are already furnished."

"In the best of taste, I'm sure," he'd said. Then, before her temper had a chance to rise, "There's no hurry movin your things out, then." He'd changed before her eyes from a Puritan to a self-conscious schoolboy. "If we needed a second shuttle, I wouldn't have rented it. Store em here."

"At what charge?"

"No charge." His brows had pushed together. "Just give us a wave and we'll come back as soon as we can."

"Thank you," she'd said, "but 'soon as you can' might be a very long time. Just give me a day, and I'll return it just as I got it. Minus the dirt."

He hadn't reacted to her little poke, which had frightened her. "Well," he'd said finally.

"Well," she'd echoed.

He'd hesitated, as if about to say more, and she'd held her breath, not knowing if his next words would lift her heart or crush it. _Do you want to ask me to stay, or bid me good riddance? Before it's too late, tell me what you really want. I'm a big girl, I can take it._

"Take care," he'd said, and turned for the stairs up to the galley.

"He cares," Inara said to her mother. "But I don't know if he cares enough."

Aliya let the capture run to its laughter-filled end and activated it again, then paused it on a closeup of Mal. "He's rather handsome, in a rugged careworn way. There are stories written on his face. Still, nothing like the rest of your stable of admirers. And you say he's a bigot."

"I didn't say _that_. A chauvinist, perhaps, but..."

"Let's not mince words. Surely he has some redeeming qualities, or have you acquired a taste for abuse?"

"He's playful. Passionate about his causes. Flexible in his ethics, but only to a certain point. Understated. Quirky. Stubborn as an old mule. He won't have responsibility imposed on him, but responsibilities he takes on freely, he treats very seriously. He's gentle and generous to the weak and downtrodden. He-"

Aliya held a palm up. "I'm quite sure you could go on all night. I get the idea."

"What was yours like?"

The other woman smiled. "I'm quite sure I could go on all night as well. Suffice to say he's the most fascinating man I've ever known, and has a face like an old hound."

The two women giggled a moment, and then Inara sobered. "Am I his, Mother?"

"Inara Serra. If you ever leave the Guild, I'll tell you your father's name. Until then-"

"'A Companion's heart belongs to all men, and to none'," she quoted. "I didn't really expect you to tell me."

"Back to this, then." Aliya tapped the image on the capture. "I don't want to steer your decision, but I want to be sure you've considered fully. Assume all the roadblocks are cleared away, and he'll have you. You're talking about leaving the Guild and cleaving to this man alone. Sharing his life and hardships. Bearing and raising his children, presumably without gene selection, just rolling the dice and taking what you get."

"You know I can't have children."

"Not in the usual way. Curse the doctors for that error. But there are methods, if his pride would permit." She lowered her voice. "Have you fully considered what it would be like growing old with him?"

"I understand what I'd be giving up. Of course I do," Inara whispered. "If only I could know what he's prepared to give up for me."

Aliya scoffed. "The principal difference between men and women is that a woman looks for one man who'll give her everything, and a man seeks out every woman who'll give him one thing."

"That seems a terribly cynical observation, coming from you."

"I was quoting, actually. That man friend of mine. He always was hard on himself. I wonder if yours understands himself half as well. I much doubt he knows what he's capable of giving up for you - and what he's not." Aliya stood. "It takes time to wear off, you know. He's already middle-aged. He might be dead or senile before you get your first gray hair."

Inara stood as well. "I've done my homework. But I can't be concerned about that. He lives a risky life. He could die a month from now, in a gunfight or a crash or any of a million misadventures. Buddha, he might be dead already, though I think the others would send word. If I did this, we'd live day to day. The future would just have to take care of itself."

"Darling, make no mistake. Your future together ends in death for you both. When he's gone, the Guild won't take you back."

"I know. But still I've been wrestling with the idea for months."

"Even after the business with Nandi?"

"Well…" She cast her eyes on the carpet. "Not until I came here."

Aliya nodded. "A little distance on the problem. But did his absence really allow you to see him more clearly, or just to forget what he's like?"

"You think it's a crazy idea." The world around her pressed down, and for a moment it was impossible to move or speak or even raise her head. "Of course. I should never have left. I should have -"

A gentle hand cupped her chin and raised it, and she was looking into Aliya's doe-soft eyes again. "I think that any parent is horrified by the idea of burying her child. And that's exactly what I'll have to do if you do what you're contemplating. But I've hung my toes over this same precipice, darling. And felt the same breathless wonder at the prospect of the jump. I still think he and I would have been happy together, happy enough to trade forever for." Aliya released her. "But you have to be _sure_. The stakes are too high."

"How can I possibly be sure?"

"You can't. Not hiding here. Go back to your ship. Face him and the issues squarely and settle them, even if it means fighting every day until you do. If you love each other, you should at least be able to talk honestly."

"Honestly. But how can I tell him about the Guild, and… everything?"

"You can't. There are too many secrets in your keeping that you're not free to share. But knowing wouldn't change the way he feels about you anyway, not if he deserves you. You have bigger issues to settle." She leaned forward. "Have you told each other, 'I love you'? Or even, 'I love you, but'?"

She couldn't speak an answer. She shook her head.

"Well, for heaven's sake, start with that. It should make the rest go easier. And if you can't get past that, if you both can't change or compromise enough to come together, tell him to go sling shit at a monkey."

Inara snorted. "_Mother._" Then: "What about the treatments, then? Tell him?"

"First, you mean? God, no. You don't want to share _that _decision with him. He'd never let you do it. Tell him about your reproductive issue at the beginning, so he knows what you both will have to do for children. But _don't _give him the whole story, at least until your first child is born." Aliya smiled. "If you have to, tell him while she's sleeping in his arms. It will be easier to convince him it was worth it that way."

-0-

The chamber's door closed. Alone again, Aliya heard her daughter's steps briefly patter down the hall, lighter than her mother had heard them since her return. The House Madrassis knelt again and stared into the flame, waiting for it – and her emotions - to steady. "Heavenly Father," she finally murmured in English, "thank You for the gift of my daughter, for bringing her back to me in her time of trial, for answering my prayer - the moment it left my lips! And for giving us both this second chance. But give Your servant some sign. What quirk of mischief or divine plan led You to put her on the same ship with _him_?"


	5. Mal, Wash, Book: Test of Faith

Malcolm Reynolds was a man whom life had passed over like a sandstorm, shaping him with the abrasions of fate and circumstance. There were places he was plain rubbed raw, and the slightest touch or reminder produced a response less decision than reflex. Other parts of him were worn smooth, blank and featureless, offering no clue to what was underneath and no purchase to hold or move him. And there were still other parts of him where the softer, more yielding layers had been scoured away, exposing the harder material beneath that no storm could further erode.

But there was more to him than simple endurance. Under the proper circumstances, his heart lightened, and he gladdened the hearts of those in his company. He could tell a joke, play a game, dance to a tune, and hold up his end of a conversation. There were even people scattered across the 'Verse who would say that Mal Reynolds was easy to get along with.

None of those people worked for him, however. And, to Mal's mind, that was as things should be; a boss whose people were too comfortable around him wasn't asking enough of them. But he valued his crew, as talents and as people, and tried to do right by them, and took them as they came. Including the one who dressed in loud floral shirts and had married his right-hand girl. Nevertheless, it was damned fortunate that the craziest person aboard who couldn't read minds was also a crackerjack pilot.

Mal was on the last two steps to the bridge doors when he heard a voice inside. "Oh, god, will this nightmare never end?" Wash groaned. "Traveling for five days with no food or water. I don't know how much longer we can go on."

Mal paused at the hatch. The pilot was seated at his console with his back to the door, an array of toys spread across the displays. He wiggled his stego in an imitation of a weary walk as he pushed it across the console. "If our expedition fails, saurian civilization is doomed. Already our comrades are faltering." With his other hand, he brought his Rex alongside. "Be strong, old friend," he said in a scratchy voice. "I always eat the weakest first. I'd miss you."

Mal said, "I always knew you played with em."

"Didn't realize it was my guilty secret," Wash said without turning. He left the toy monsters in place and reached overhead to flip a switch. "Or that you were trying to catch me at it. I'd have put on a better show."

"Why dinosaurs, anyway?"

"Well," the pilot said, scratching an ear, "the oldest of these are my little sister's." He touched the stegosaur and Rex. "When they're young, Core World girls are fengla about em, the way Rim girls are about horses. River comes up here to play with them sometimes, did you know that?"

Mal dropped into the copilot's seat and turned to face the pilot. "No."

"Just as well. Usually they're in pitched battles with Independent soldiers. The humans don't win often. The dinos are smarter. Anyway. She sent me to boot camp with her two favorites, and I managed to hang onto them all through the War. Saved my sanity, maybe."

Mal started to express his doubts about how much of Wash's sanity had been saved, but then the man's tone registered. "That right?"

Wash stared out the window at the stars for a moment, then said, "When we reach Viking, will we be landing the ship, or just sending a shuttle down? I want see how the old girl handles in atmo now."

Mal was fair certain that wasn't the first thing the pilot had thought to say, but he rode along. "No cargo on Viking, just a meet. But we should be pickin up at our next stop. What did you do to my ship?"

"Got a new airfoil profile for the inertial field. It's still a lenticular ovoid, but the angle of attack…" he stopped at the look on Mal's face. "Right. You know the ship's inertial field extends out past the hull a bit."

"Sure. That's why you got to kick the shuttles out a little before you light em up, else you're just wasting fuel."

"Right. In atmo, one way the field helps us in flight is that it sort of acts as an outer skin that keeps most of the air from hitting the hull. There are places you could stand on her while we're zooming along and hardly feel a breeze." He patted the console. "Love the old girl, but she's about as aerodynamic as a gravy boat. That's why most Fireflys land without an approach glide, just drop straight down, fighting gravity all the way."

"Spendin the captain's fuel in a most heartbreakin way."

"Dearer than blood, I know. But you can change the shape of the inertial field a little, if you've got a good mechanic. Ours is sort of lens-shaped, but the front and lateral cross-sections are asymmetrical… the bottom curve is shallower than the top one, and it sort of pokes out in front a little. So it creates lift in flight, saves fuel and makes her more agile. Kaylee and I have been experimenting with different shapes."

"Huh. Wash, Fireflys been around a long time. You say other ones don't do this, even though it cuts costs?"

The pilot shrugged. "It's a kind of knowledge gap between specialties. Kaylee would have figured it out in a minute if she knew how to fly, I bet. But regular engineering types don't pay much attention to what goes on up on the bridge. And most space pilots don't have a good grasp of flight principles, either. And damn few of them care about how the machinery works that makes the ship go, as long as it does what they expect when they flip a switch."

Mal nodded. Most of the pilots he knew had a right distaste for getting their hands dirty; it was another reason he'd wanted Wash so bad. After watching him stick his head into the works and talk about making changes, Mal had known Wash was the kind of pilot the creaky old ship needed. "Ayuh. Spose you're more mechanical from bein raised on a machine world like New Pitts."

"Not really. There are plenty of ignorant button-pushers there too. I just don't like having to take somebody else's word that something my life's depending on is running right."

"You do that every time you get on an elevator."

"I mean, something I'm at the controls of." He stared out at the stars again. "You've heard me say, 'any landing you can crawl away from is a good landing'?" The muscles at the hinge of his jaw flexed. "Well, one time, I had a very bad landing."

"On Taylor."

Wash turned briefly to him, then turned back to the stars. "Don't know why I should be surprised. I suppose anything I whisper in her ear goes straight to yours, if she thinks you might need to know."

"Actually, you told me. In a bar on Boros when the girls were out shoppin. The time Zoë came in and carried you out."

"Oh."

"Didn't say much. Just that it was the last time you'd ever trust a mechanic you were sleepin with."

"Ouch." The pilot shifted in his seat. "Her name was Janine. Looked just like Inara, if you can imagine Inara with dirty hands."

Mal scoffed. "Somewhat of a stretch."

"And dark blonde hair."

"Huh."

"And ten centimeters taller - incredible legs - and maybe six or eight kilos heavier. Lighter skin. Green eyes."

"In what particular way," Mal asked, "did she _resemble_ Inara?"

"Oh. The way she looks at you."

"Wait. Inara looks at you like a girl you used to sleep with?"

"Well, no. She looks at _you_ like a girl I used to sleep with. At me, I mean. Her." Wash flipped another switch and studied a screen.

Mal said heavily, "Just what were we talkin about?"

"Dinosaurs, I think."

"Maybe we should get back on that subject."

"I'm not sure we actually left it, but okay." Something beeped once on the pilot's console. "Grav anomaly. Just for a second."

"I didn't feel it."

"It was too faint for that. AG field looks fine, though. Funny. Anyway. I woke up still inside the wreckage. Moving a finger brought more pain than I ever thought existed. The Browncoats who found me dragged me out by my armpits like a sack of sand. It hurt too much to scream. I swear, till I looked down and saw my legs, I thought they'd left them in the wreck. I spent eighteen months in Independent hands, busted up worse than they could fix. Six or eight weeks in a hospital back home would have had me right back to normal, but…"

"But there wasn't any prisoner exchange. Not after the first six months or so. I remember the arguments. The Core had plenty a warm bodies to replace their losses, unlike us, and they were gettin tired of takin the same men prisoner every battle. Sides, every morsel we fed a prisoner came right out of the mouth of one of our soldiers. They were still fightin for the Alliance just sittin on their pigus. What prison were you at?"

"Allanville."

Mal's last bit of irony deserted him. "Wo de ma." Deaths at Allanville had topped thirty-five percent by the time it was 'liberated' in the third year of the War. The calculated cruelties of the 're-education programs' and 'social experiments' visited on Independents in Alliance captivity paled at the horrors the victors found when they landed at Allanville and marched through its gates. Its commandant had been tried for war crimes, quickly, and executed. "For what it's worth, the cheerin wasn't all on the Core side of the Border when Wirz stretched a rope."

"Anybody who cheered was an idiot. Wirz was probably the most decent guy in the camp. But he got no supplies, and the men who guarded his prisoners were the dregs, jibas who couldn't be trusted to point a rifle in the right direction out at the front. He did what he could for us. I testified for the defense at his 'trial', such as it was."

"Huh."

Wash stared at the toys on his console. "For example. I healed as well as I could without surgery – that is, not very. I got to the latrine and the mess on crutches, but that was about all the walking I was good for. One of the guards thought it was hilarious to kick my crutches out from under and listen to me scream. Did it about three times a week. He even let me see him coming, just for the added fun of watching me try to get away. He was the only one, but he wasn't the only one who thought it was funny. Wirz found out and put him on permanent watchtower duty – without a gun. Just sent him up there and had the ladder removed. He got his meals hauled up by rope and his slop bucket lowered the same way. After that, the other hundans were a little more polite. He was still up there when the Alliance landed. He testified _against_ Wirz at the trial."

The console beeped again, and Wash frowned.

"Something wrong?"

"Another blip on the grav. But it's not a field glitch. It looks like it's coming from outside. But that doesn't make any sense. It'd take a moon-sized body in visible range, or maybe a big ship going close by on hard burn." He shrugged. "Must be the instruments. Maybe Kaylee'll have an idea." He picked up his Rex. "Mal, there were guys lots worse off than me in that camp. Men with serious wounds, or sicknesses that needed treatments they weren't getting. We were all dying, but some were dying by millimeters and others by centimeters. I'm not sure how it got started, but I found myself in the terminal-case barracks doing little puppet theaters with my dinos, comedy skits that brought a smile or two to men with nothing to be happy about. Then I started doing them for chronic cases like me. Word spread, and then regular prisoners were dropping in. A couple of them started making puppets out of anything handy - to expand the cast, so to speak. I got talked into regular performances, and we worked out a schedule." He smiled. "They were cheesy, but it was all the entertainment we had. Even the guards watched. Coming up with new skits was therapy for me too, kept my mind off my troubles – like how short the rations were getting. I figured none of us had more than a couple months, so I just decided to be as funny and entertaining as possible, right up till the end.

"Then one fine morning we saw about a million contrails in the sky, and two hours later Alliance troops were marching down the road to the prison. I'll never forget it. The first one through the gate looked at me and threw up. Course, he hadn't seen the ones who couldn't make it out of barracks. The triage medics decided I wasn't going to die anytime soon as long as they fed me, so they kept me there for another three days and sent me up with the second wave. I counted every ship that lifted until my turn came."

Mal nodded, remembering the weeks-long evacuation of Serenity Valley. Men had died of wounds, died of shock, and died of broken hearts watching those boats lift. "How long were they mending you?"

"Months. They had to undo a lot of the improper healing and start over. Lots of surgeries. But-" He flexed his hand and rolled his head. "Good as new, about. I get achy when the weather changes."

"Weather changes. Aboard a ship in space."

"Exactly." Wash nodded. "Another fringe benefit."

Mal looked out the window at the stars. "Spose you got a hero's welcome when you got out of the hospital and went home."

"Actually, no. After I got out of the hospital, the powers-that-be had to find something for me to do. The standard term of enlistment was for two years, but when the War started, the fine print defined it a little differently - until cessation of hostilities. Core science doesn't leave its wounded disabled; there's no such thing as medical discharge. I was classed fit for return to duty twenty-six months after the crash.

"But by then, the Navy didn't need me anymore. Serenity Valley was over, and most of the Rim was in Alliance hands. Armed resistance was down to a few redoubts not worth the trouble of taking. Peace feelers were being extended on both sides. I was out of a job, but not out of the business, because once the Navy invoked the 'emergency' clause to extend my time, they were as bound by it as I was." Wash leaned back in his chair, crossed his feet on top of the console, and laced his fingers together behind his head. "So they found a job for me. Doing about what you see me doing right now. You remember me telling you that I was laconic in flight school?"

"It was a memorable occasion. We were tied up and blindfolded, as I recall."

"Yeah, well. It's easy to be a man of few words when you're alone in the room. They gave me an instructor's position at a school that was an empty shell – fully staffed and equipped, but no students. The place was budgeted for three more years, need it or not, and it became a kind of dumping ground. I was assigned a classroom and a course to teach. I was required to file lesson plans and all the other paperwork – attendance lists, even. And go there every schoolday during class hours. But the only time I actually lectured - only time I shared the room with another person, actually - was when the school commandant audited my class for my quarterly eval." The pilot grinned. "Colonel Washington, he was. He came in at the start of class time and sat in the back, as if the room was packed with students. I'd deliver my day's instruction to an imaginary full house. And, since one of the items on the colonel's checklist was 'ability to engage students', I'd address questions to the empty room, then act as if I couldn't decide who to call on. I'd point to a vacant chair, pause, and say something like, 'Flare effect! Excellent answer, Cadet Nemo!' He took it all very seriously, because he was only a year from retirement, and he didn't want any bad marks on his final fitness report. So he made sure all the t's were dotted and i's crossed."

Mal grinned, thinking of some of the fussbudget commanders he'd had during the war. "Didn't wear a mustache, by any chance?"

River appeared at the hatch, a plenitude of thin silver ribbons draped about her head and shoulders and hanging from her fingers. "We can still use it. But I don't think we'll get it back in the box."

"Hello, little crazy person," said the pilot, putting his feet down and turning. "What are you doing with all that bridging tape?"

"I'm modeling. Pretend I'm a Norway spruce. Kaylee says using it for tinsel won't hurt it any, but she'll have to find something to wind it on after we take down the tree." She turned to Mal. "Pretty?"

Mal gave Wash a glance to see how worried he should be about a goodly supply of spare whatever-it-was being used for holiday decorations. But the pilot seemed relaxed and amused. "Uh, yeah. Real nice. Probly look even better on the Christmas tree."

The crazy girl gave him an eye roll and turned to leave. Then she stopped and turned back. "December twenty-fifth isn't Yeshwa's birthday," River said. Her eyes roved the pair a little apprehensively, as if she wasn't sure she should go on, or even what she might say next. "He was born in the fall. The early Church observed it near the winter solstice to attract converts from other religions who had their own end-of-the-year holidays."

"Huh," Mal said. "Can't say I'm surprised to hear commercializing Christmas started with the Church."

The pilot raised his brows. "Yeshwa?"

"His real name." She moved toward the door, seeming embarrassed. "It was mispronounced in translation, getting a little farther off with each language it was filtered through." She disappeared through the hatch. A moment later, her voice came through the opening from the bottom of the stairs, sounding almost apologetic. "The year is wrong, too."

Wash turned his seat forward. "Got to say, Mal, I'm a little surprised to see a Christmas tree in the lounge."

Mal folded his arms. "I like a party much as anybody, Wash. And givin and getting of gifts is a fine thing, and warms the heart. We'll eat better this week than we will the rest of the year, and only a fool would curl his lip at that. And if little Kaylee wants to put up a tree to hang shiny on, I got no problem putting down along the way somewhere and cutting her one. But if anybody gets the urge to start talkin about 'the reason for the season', they better wait till I'm out of the room."

"Not much danger of that. I think you and the Shepherd reached an understanding a long time ago. And, even if you hadn't, he's the un-preachiest missionary I ever met. Sometimes I wonder what he believes in, to be honest."

"Far as I'm concerned, that statement holds for any man of the cloth. They-"

The bridge windows lit up, and the two men were bathed in white light. Wash snatched at the yoke and froze. "Wo de tien ah!"

"Wash?" Mal said, voice rising. It looked like an imminent collision with some other ship whose lights were shining into the bridge. Why wasn't the man _doing_ something?

Why wasn't the collision alarm screaming?

Wash continued to stare out the window at the hard point of light seeming only a few hundred yards dead ahead. "It's a star."

"Zao gao. How can it be a star? And how did we get so gorram close to it?"

"No, no. It's, like, light years away. Maybe thousands of light years away." Wash shaded his eyes with a hand then took it away. The illumination wasn't blinding, really, just enough to cast shadows in the night-lighted bridge. But, coming sudden and unexpected out of the Black, it had seemed a whole lot brighter at first. "It's a supernova. An exploding star. The last time anybody saw one this bright was in 1054."

"So it's harmless?"

Wash flipped some switches and studied readouts. "Yeah. It might have been the cause of the grav blips, but they were no danger. Radiation's scarcely above normal background. It's just a light show. Once-in-a-lifetime."

Mal pulled the microphone out of its holder. "This is the captain. Anybody wants to see a once-in-a-lifetime light show come on up to the bridge."

Mal let the pilot make explanations as the rest of the crew appeared: the Shepherd, who descended the stairs to the lower deck at the front of the bridge and stared raptly with his nose almost touching the glass; Zoe, who came to stand beside her husband, seeming to take most of her pleasure from her husband's enjoyment; Simon, who studied the sight with an unreadable expression, his thoughts seemingly as distant as the exploding star; Kaylee, clapping her hands in wonder; Jayne, who'd come through the hatch with a rifle, and now stood staring at the assembly with no more than the occasional glance out the window.

Mal said, "Where's River and Inara?"

"Watching from her shuttle," Simon said. "They saw it through the windows."

Mal grunted. River had been spending more time with Inara than previous, since the Companion's return to the ship. Mal had figured that, with Kaylee and Simon spending more alone time together, the girl had just been looking for someone to talk to, and listening was one of Inara's professional skills, after all.

And Inara was keeping to herself more than usual, just lately. That wasn't quite the way of it: actually, she wasn't speaking to him since day before yesterday, and avoiding anyplace she might run into him. They'd started trading words over her leaving, voices rising as they'd moved on to other grievances, and she'd bit the end off their argument by telling him she loved him. _I love you, Mal,_ she'd said for the first time ever, _but I swear I don't know if I can share a ship with you anymore, much less give you what you want from me._ Then she'd turned about and walked off, leaving him staring speechless after. She'd been parked in her shuttle ever since, waiting, he suspected, for him to come to her.

Kaylee whispered in Simon's ear, and tugged him towards the door.

"Hey," Mal said. "Tired of it already?"

The little mechanic dimpled. "We're gonna go catch it from the other shuttle. More quiet-like."

"Ain't natural," Jayne said uneasily. "Stars don't even twinkle out in the Black. They sure as hell don't turn into landing beacons. Next thing, the worlds'll all reverse their orbits and we'll never find the one we're aimin for again."

Wash grinned. "Wouldn't _that_ be an adventure."

Book climbed the ladder back up to the bridge. "It's beautiful," the Shepherd said. "A shining symbol of hope, just in time for Christmas. Really makes you think, doesn't it?"

The muscles at the hinge of Mal's jaw bunched. "It makes me think about the worlds that mighta been circling that star. Worlds like ours, maybe, full of people of one kind or another. People who got tossed into a furnace to give us our pretty light show." He looked at Wash. "And how it might have happened more than once in the past. Say, fifteen hundred years before." He turned a harder look on the Shepherd. "And a thousand before that, bout the time a Roman governor called for a nose count in Judea." He turned for the hatch. "And I wonder how soon it's gonna be our turn."

Book called to him from the top of the stairs. "Mal."

"Don't start with me, preacher." He kicked at his door and stepped on the rung.

"Don't let one lost battle steal your faith in God, man."

He scoffed. "What kinda jackass only believes in God so long as God's on his side?" He descended the ladder and let it swing shut above him.

Mal lay sleepless in his bunk for a long while, hands under his head, staring at the steel overhead as he imagined the fierce starlight bathing the hull outside. Then he scoffed, rose, and went to his dresser. He opened the top drawer and reached all the way to the back, pushing aside everyday items until his fingers touched a small parcel of cloth, which he tucked into a shirt pocket. Then he climbed his ladder and headed for the bridge.

He was surprised to see Wash alone on the bridge, contemplating the nova's dazzle. "Everybody get tired of the show?"

The pilot gave him an odd look, then glanced away. The planes of his face were sharp in the hard light. "You might say that. The sense of wonder kind of waned after you left. Besides, according to River, these things stay bright for at least a month." Wash glanced at him again. "Can't sleep?"

"No." He fingered the object in his pocket. "If you'd rather be somewhere else, like maybe sharing time with your wife, I'll finish the watch." It was a frequent offer; Mal's sleeping habits were nearly as irregular as River's.

Wash got up and left without another word.

Mal brought out the little parcel, unwrapped it, and stood staring at the crucifix he hadn't worn in seven years. He twined his fingers in the chain, feeling the links rasp against his calluses. Then he went to the top of the forward stairs and sat, elbows on knees and hands loosely clasped, letting the cross dangle against his wrist.

"I got my hands together 'cause that's how I was taught to talk to God when I was little. I'm not feelin particularly respectful right now." He scoffed again. "Fact is, I'm near certain I'm talkin to myself. But my heart is heavy, and I got no one else to talk to right now, so You're elected, even if You're not listenin and don't care what I got to say.

"I know most folks'll tell you that it's not man's place to judge God. Who, then? What kinda father doesn't care if his kids are proud of him? My way 'o thinkin, when a man brings a child into the world, he's responsible for it. He's accountable to that child, even if that child can't understand his decisions, and he surely needs to give a better reason than 'cause I'm your father and I said so', or 'someday you'll understand'."

He stared at the cross brushing his wrist. It had been a farewell gift from his mother when he'd enlisted, a protective talisman that he'd accepted for her ease as much as his own. In dark times, it had been as much a remembrance of her as of the Almighty, and always brought her face to mind when he'd kissed it. "People think I lost my faith on Hera, left it behind in Serenity Valley. What happened there galls me, right enough, but what happened there had already happened to us time and again on a smaller scale. I'd already figured out that there was more to some of our nonsensical orders than squabblin among the factions, that there were men high in the Movement that were just out for themselves, using us dumb farmers for counters in a different game. It was the cause that I fought for, not them, and it still seems good to me, whether You approve or not.

"No, I got my eyes opened bout God a bit at a time – by men in robes, not blood and gore. Some of the same people who are so sure it's a sin to judge God got no trouble over claimin to know Your mind and speak with Your voice. I watched the Core church march in behind the Khangs like a second army. They made rice converts by the thousands when the Alliance burned all their crops and livestock and stamped local governments into the dirt and walked away.

"And I saw what a man o' God will do to keep his place at the head of his flock, too. There was a preacher on Shadow – not our church, but mighty popular - who used to foam at the mouth as he pounded the pulpit, goin on about the 'idolators' in the Church of Man. That same preacher's got a fine new church and a local vid show on Sundays. He's also got an Alliance flag standin six feet from the altar, and he calls the Church of Man the 'Mother Church' now, and talks about reconciling differences. Meanwhile, our pastor, who never said anything about the Church of Man except that they should leave folks alone, finds half his parishioners' offerings goin to taxes, and his ministry last on the list for everything rationed, from fuel to plumbin repair. Pretty soon, all the churches that are left'll be teachin it's a sin to rebel, or some such. That'll be worse than losin the War, by my sight."

He looked out at the point of cold light shining in at him. "A God who's all-powerful is responsible for everything too, and if He can't be bothered to explain all the hurt and craziness He does to His children, and lets jackals like those use Him for their own ends, He doesn't deserve worship. And that's where we stand, I reckon."

A shoe sole scuffed the deck just inside the hatch. Mal turned. Shepherd Book looked up from his Bible to give the captain a startled look. "Captain." The old preacher glanced at Mal's hands. "I'm interrupting. I'm sorry." He started to back out of the compartment.

"This isn't what it looks like, Shepherd," Mal said, gathering up the necklace and dropping it back into his pocket. "It was my mother's. Holidays just make me a mite sentimental, is all. Come on in." He took the pilot's seat.

Book placed a hand on the stair rail. "Trouble sleeping?"

"Head's just full of everything that might go wrong on Viking. You?"

Book stared at the unquiet star ahead. "I've been thinking about what you said. Your words have the ring of truth to me."

"Wai. Shepherd, I don't know anything about exploding stars."

"Not that part. The last." He turned from the view to Mal. "I'm that kind of jackass, I'm afraid. I don't mean that I ever felt the loss of God's regard. But I defined myself by my cause, and maybe defined God by it as well. When I became unsure that what I was doing was God's work, it was a sore loss of my surety of heaven's welcome."

Mal grunted. Shepherd Book was a mighty unusual grayshirt: a complex man with a simple faith, the only sort Mal felt he could respect. Mal had often wondered how long Book had been a preacher, and what he'd done during the War. "Never thought you were always a preacher. You act like a man who fought."

"Oh, I fought, Captain. Longer than you. And the Alliance beat me just as soundly." Book shook his head. "Only, most of that time, I thought we were winning. But eventually I realized that we'd fallen back to regroup too often, that our defeats weren't 'minor setbacks,' that we were fighting a rearguard action and the war was already lost."

"What battles were you in, Shepherd?"

"None you'd recognize. It wasn't the same war." He looked out the windows at the stars. "I don't claim to know His plans anymore. I ask Him every day for guidance. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't. On the days it doesn't, I can't say whether He wasn't telling or if I just wasn't listening hard enough." The old man turned away. "But I'm sure He's always listening to me, and interested in what I have to say, because I'm certain I'm part of His plans."

Mal turned to glare at the old man. "You were here the whole time."

"No, Captain." Book paused at the hatch. "Just the last few sentences as I was coming up the stair and through the door. But it was enough to guess all the rest. Merry Christmas."

When Mal was quite sure the old preacher was gone, he turned back to the window and stared out. "Merry Christmas."


End file.
